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Library  of  Dr.  A.  A.  Hodge.     Presented. 


BL  200  .vaTliis 

'1906*"®'  "^^^° 
Natural  theology 


on,  1825- 


'■:^\ 


NATURAL  THEOLOGY 


RATIONAL   THEISM. 


By  M.  valentine,  D.D. 

Ex-President  of  Pennsylvania   College,   and   Professor  of 

Theology  in  the  Lutheran  Theological  Seminary. 

Gettysburg,   Pa. 


CHICAGO: 

S.  C.   GRIGGS    AND    COMPANY. 

1885. 


Copyright.  1885, 

bt  s.  c.  grtggs  and  company. 


KKIOHT    S:  LEDNAR.D  ■  | 


PREFACE. 


rr^HIS  volume  presents  the  substance  of  lectures  on  the 
subject,  given  to  students  in  the  author's  recent  rela- 
tion as  President  of  Pennsylvania  College.  He  was  led  to 
this  method  of  instruction  by  the  absence  of  any  suitable 
text-book  covering  the  various  forms  of  the  theistic  evi- 
dences. Though  the  matter  is  here  somewhat  rearranged 
and  reshaped,  the  general  discussion  has  been  determined 
by  the  needs  of  the  College  class  room  and  the  purpose  of 
furnishing  a  reasoned  and  correct  view  of  the  truth  on 
this  incomparably  important  subject.  The  aim  of  the 
book,  therefore,  is,  not  to  offer  any  new  or  original  view 
of  the  theistic  question,  but  to  bring  together  the 
various  approved  evidences  and  furnish  a  compendious 
statement  of  them  as  they  now  stand  in  the  best  accred- 
ited thought  and  knowledge  of  our  times.  It  is  didac- 
tic, rather  than  polemical.  The  difficulty  of  the  under- 
taking has  been  fully  appreciated.  No  subject  could  be 
named,  the  discussion  of  which  would  lead  through  such  a 
mass  of  conflicting  metaphysics  or  traverse  more  varied 
and  antagonistic  speculation.  The  scientific  theories  and 
hypotheses  of  the   recent  years  have   greatly   tended  to 


IV  PREFACE. 

make  the  basis  of  theism  the  focal  point  of  the  thought  of 
the  age.  Though  adverse  speculation,  it  is  believed,  has 
not  overthrown  any  of  the  old  evidences  in  Natural  The- 
ology, it  has  yet  made  desirable  such  changes  as  shall  har- 
monize the  statement  of  them  with  the  advanced  knowledge 
now  possessed.  Such  adjustive  modification  has  been  here 
attempted,  as  far  as  the  necessary  brevity  of  presentation 
has  allowed.  In  consideration  of  the  general  purpose  of 
the  discussion,  the  author  has  felt  at  liberty  to  draw  freely 
from  the  immense  amount  of  literature  that  has  been 
accumulated  al)out  the  subject.  He  has  at  the  same  time 
endeavored  to  make  proper  acknowledgments.  Though  it 
is  vain  to  imagine  that  the  statement  of  the  evidences  here 
given  will  satisfy  all,  it  is,  nevertheless,  hoped  that  its  pub- 
lication, in  response  to  the  frequently  expressed  wish  of 
former  pupils,  will  in  some  humble  measure  serve  the  great 
cause  of  truth,  in  supplying  to  students  and  other  intelli- 
gent readers  a  brief  view  of  the  theistic  evidences  as  con- 
sidered apart  from  special  revelation. 

Gettysburg^  Pa.,  June  i,  1885. 


OOl^TEI^TS. 


INTRODUCTIOK 

1.  Definition  and  General  View  of  the  Subject  -  1-9 

2.  The    Idea    of    God  —  Its    Content,    Genesis, 

and  Original  Form       .         .         .         -  9-20 

PART  I. 

EVIDENCES  OP  THE   DIVINE   EXISTENCE. 
Preliminary  Statements  and  Division  -         -         21-25 

CHAPTER   I. 
Presumptive  Evidence. 

1.  The  Universality  of  the  Idea  of  God         -  26-30 

2.  The  Religious  Instinct  of  the  Race        -         -         30-36 

3.  The  Benign  Influence  of  Belief  in  God     -  36-40 

4.  The    Doctrine    of    God    Affords    the    Best 

Explanation  of  the  Phenomena  of  Nature         40-43 

CHAPTER    II. 
The  Ontological  Evidence. 

1.  The  Germs  of  It  in  Plato           ...  45 

2.  Anselm's  Argument       -----  46 

3.  Descartes'  View         -         -         .         -         .  47 

4.  Bishop  Butler's  Statement    -         -         -  -               47 

5.  Cousin's  Account  of  It     -         -         -         -  47 


VI  CONTENTS. 

6.  Various  References        -         .         .         .         _  4g 

7.  Summary  of  the  Import  and  Value  of  This 

Evidence      ----..  48-58 

CHAPTER   III. 
The  Cosmological  Evidence. 

1.  Based  on  the  Pi'inciple  and  Laio  of  Causa- 

tion—  Origin  of  the  Idea  of  Cause  — 
Definition  of  Cause  —  The  Law  of  Causa- 
tion—  The  Law  Known  Intuitively  — 
Assumed  in  All  Processes  of  Knowledge  — 
Not  Simply  from  an  Impossibility  of 
Transcending  Experience  —  Not  Merely 
a  Subjective  Necessity  —  Recognized  by 
All  Science 59-65 

2.  The  Universe  Finite  and  Depe^ident         -  65,  66 

3.  Attempts  to  Invalidate  the  Conclusion  —  The 

Law  of  Causation  Alleged  to  Have  Only 
Subjective  Value  — The  Supposition  of 
an  Eternal  Universe         -         .         .         .         66-72 

4.  The  Force  and  Reach  of  the  Cosmological 

Evidence 72,  73 

CHAPTER   IV. 
The  Teleological  Evidence. 
General  Account  and  Discussion  of  the  Teleo- 
logical Evidence 74-76 

section    I.    EXPLANATION  AND  FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLES. 

1.  Definition  of  Final  Cause  or  Design  -  76-79 

2.  The  Relation  of  Final  to  Efficient  Cause        -         79-82 

3.  The  Alternative  to  Final  Cause  is  Chance  82,  83 


CONTENTS.  Vll 

4.  The  Validity  of  Final  Cause  here  regarded  as 

Resting  on  Experience  and  Induction      -         83-86 

5.  The    Reasoning    Employed    Analogical    and 

Inductive     ------  86-92 

6.  The    Phenomena    of    the  World  Viewed    as 

Effects -         -        92-94 

7.  The  Two  Points  to  be  Proved,— the  Reality 

of  Final  Causes  in  Nature,  and  that  This 

Final  Cause  must  be  Referred  to  Mind  94-96 

SECTION    II.     THE    REALITY    OF    FINAL    CAUSES    IN    NATURE. 

1.  Organisms     -------  97-116 

2.  Instinct 116-131 

3.  General  Constitution  of  the  World        -         -  131-141 

4.  Chemistry 141-154 

5.  Life 155-163 

6.  Mind 163-176 

SECTION    III.     FINAL    CAUSE    IN    NATURE    DEMANDS 
INTELLIGENCE    AND    WILL. 

1.  Intelligence    the     Natural    Explanation     of 

Adaptation   of    Means  to  Ends,  and   the 

Only  Cause  of  It  that  We  Know     -         -    179-183 

2.  The  Immanence  of  Finality  Fails  to  Vacate 

the  Need  of  an  Intelligent  Cause         -         183-186 

3.  A  Denial  of  an  Intelligent  Cause  Throws  Us 

back  on  Chance 186-194 

4.  The  Leading  Explanations  of  the  Hypothesis 

of  Evolution  Concede  the  Necessity  of  an 
Originating  and  Ordaining  Intelligence         194-199 

5.  Demanded  by  the  Existence  and  Supremacy 

of  the  Human  Mind         .         -         -         -    199-204 

6.  The  Whole  Body  of  the  Inductive  Sciences 

Rests  on  This  Assumption  -         -         -         204,  205 


vm  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER   V. 
The  Moral  Evidence. 

1.  Directly   from   the  Existence  and  Action  of 

Conscience       ------    206-213 

2.  From  the   Fact  of    a   Moral   Administration 

over  the  World 213-21G 

3.  From  the  Relation  between   the  Moral  Law 

and  Happiness  -----    216,  217 

Resume  of  All  the  Evidences         -         -         -         217-222 

PART  II. 

THE  CHARACTER    OF  GOD  — HIS    RELATIONS    TO    THE 
UNIVERSE. 


CHAPTER   I. 

The  Attributes  of  the  Deity. 

I. 

Self-Existence 

224 

IL 

Eternity       - 

225 

HL 

Personality 

225-227 

IV. 

Spirituality 

227 

V. 

Unity 

227 

VL 

Infinity         ------ 

228 

VIJ. 

*A  Group  of  Attributes   Involved  in  the 

Divine  Personality  as  Infinite 

229-231 

^IIL 

Holiness 

231 

IX. 

Goodness 

231-251 

CHAPTER   II. 

The  Relation  of  God  to  the  UniverjvE. 

T.    Whether  Transcendent,  or  Immanent,  or  Both  252-259 
II.    The  Supreme  or  Ultimate  End  in  Creation       259-269 


INTRODUCTION. 


I.    DEFINITIOX  AXD  GENERAL  VIEW  OF  THE  SUBJECT. 

1.  Natural  Theology  treats  of  the  existence  and 
character  of  God,  as  these  may  be  known  from  reason 
and  nature.  It  investigates  the  evidences  of  His  being, 
and  seeks  to  determine  His  attributes  and  relation  to  the 
world.  The  conclusions  reached  through  this  investiga- 
tion, and  established  as  valid  on  just  principles  of  evi- 
dence, form  what  may  be  accepted  as  Rational  Theism,  or 
the  doctrine  of  God  as  ascertainable  apart  from  super- 
natural revelation. 

2.  The  fundamental  idea  upon  which  Natural  Theology 
proceeds  is  that,  if  there  be  a  God  as  the  Creator  or  First 
Cause  of  the  universe.  His  existence  and  character  may 
and  must  be  found  impressed  upon  it  and  discoverable 
from  it.  To  some  degree,  at  least,  the  author  of  a  work 
is  necessarily  revealed  in  the  work  he  has  done.  With 
respect  to  simply  human  affairs  this  principle  holds  fully. 
In  every  product  of  thought  and  skill  we  read  the  exist- 
ence and  mind  of  the  producer.  From  the  rudest  mechan- 
ism to  the  highest  and  most  complex  products  of  inven- 
tion and  the  fine  arts,  from  the  roughly  shaped  arrow- 
head of  savagery  to  the  steam-engine  or  chronometer  of 
science,  the  thing  made  contains  and  reflects  the  thought 
and  purpose  of  the  maker.  The  idea  is  fixed  and  legible 
in  the  product.     Whatever  a  man  in  the  creative  energy 


2  IXTRODUCTION". 

of  his  will,  under  the  guidance  of  his  intelligence,  does  in 
the  world,  not  only  bears  witness  to  his  existence,  but 
expresses  his  mind,  skill,  and  character.  The  works  of 
men  reveal  them  even  more  surely  than  their  words. 

This  principle  has  a  twofold  application  in  the  investi- 
gations of  Natural  Theology.  It  is  applied,  first,  with 
respect  to  the  world  of  mind,  or  conscious  human  intelli- 
gence. If  man  is  a  creature  of  God,  if  his  existence  and 
nature  have  been  given  him  by  a  Supreme  First  Cause,  it 
is  not  only  reasonable  to  expect,  but  absurd  to  doubt,  that 
there  is  to  be  found  in  his  mind  some  impress  or  reflection 
of  His  being,  some  mark  of  the  workman  on  his  work. 
It  is  fair  to  suppose  that  the  human  soul,  or  the  rational 
nature  of  man,  would  mirror,  possibly  even  to  the  soul's 
own  consciousness,  the  existence  of  its  author.  To  say 
the  least,  it  is  fair  to  raise  the  question  whether  this  may 
not  be  so,  and  to  settle  it  by  its  appropriate  evidences. 
The  principle  is  applicable,  secondly,  with  respect  to  the 
material  universe.  This,  not  only  as  a  whole,  but  in  all 
its  parts  and  particulars,  is  justly  viewed  as  entitled  to 
bear  testimony  when  the  question  of  the  being  and 
character  of  a  Maker  is  investigated.  Not  only  according 
to  the  common  understanding  of  men,  but  according  to 
the  fundamental  conception  and  basis  of  science,  the 
material  cosmos  holds  and  presents  in  its  constitution  and 
order  some  records  of  its  origin  and  history,  legible  to  the 
reason  of  those  who  honestly  study  it.  If  anyone  should 
allege  that  this  is  only  an  assumption,  incapable  of  abso- 
lute proof,  it  is  enough  to  recall  the  fact  that  it  is  the 
necessary  postulate  upon  which  all  the  great  structures  of 
scientific  explanation  of  the  universe  are  founded  and 
built.      Should  it  be  said,  as  it  often  is,  that  nature  con- 


INTRODUCTIOISr.  3 

ceals  rather  than  reveals  God,  forming  a  veil  behind  which 
He  is  hidden  as  the  action  of  physical  causes  goes  cease- 
lessly oil,  it  is  freely  admitted  that  the  eye  of  sense  cannot 
behold  Him.  But  the  vision  of  reason,  interpreting  these 
physical  causes,  can  penetrate  the  veil  and  see  the  reality 
and  glory  of  the  Power  that  operates  through  them. 

3.  Natural  Theology  proceeds  also  upon  the  legitimacy 
and  reliability  of  the  so-called  intidtional^  a  priori^  or 
necessary  truths^  and  of  the  laxos  of  logical  tliought.  It 
accepts  as  trustworthy,  and  as  standing  for  objective  real- 
ity, the  ideas  of  Space,  Time,  Being  and  Relations,  Sub- 
stance and  Attribute,  and  the  Law  of  Causation.  In  doins!' 
so,  there  is  no  necessity  of  settling  the  dispute  among 
philosophers  as  to  the  precise  way  in  which  they  originate. 
For  both  intuitionalists  and  their  opponents  recognize 
that  they  are  essential  and  fundamental  in  human  thought, 
incapable  of  being  shown  to  be  invalid  or  misleading,  and 
impossible  to  be  denied  without  repudiating  and  over- 
throwing the  foundations  of  science  and  knowledge. 
Though  there  is  no  good  ground  to  doubt  the  substantial 
correctness  of  the  view  which  explains  these  primary 
truths  as  "intuitions"  of  the  reason,  necessarily  develoi3ed 
in  connection  with  and  on  occasion  of  the  action  of  the 
sense-perceptions  and  consciousness,  we  need  not  rest 
their  validity  upon  any  particular  explanation  of  their 
origin  or  any  special  way  of  designating  them.  It  is 
enough  to  know  that  their  authority  is  invincible  in  the 
practical  thinking  and  reasoning  of  the  race,  and  that 
science  or  philosophy  cannot  impeach  them  without  sui- 
cide. For  they  are  necessarily  assumed  in  all  inductive 
and  deductive  reasoning,  ni  all  the  research  and  the  essen- 
tial processes  through  which   conclusions  are  everywhere 


4:  INTRODUCTION". 

established.  Without  them  logic  loses  all  its  foundation 
principles,  and  moves  in  air.  The  arguments  framed  to 
overthrow  them  are  themselves  overthrown,  making  plain 
the  impossibility  of  refuting  their  ruling  authority. 

4.  Natural  Theology  is  a  science.  The  investigation 
is  conducted  upon  the  accepted  principles  of  scientific 
procedure.  The  method  is  that  of  exact  observation  of 
the  realities  of  the  mental  and  physical  worlds,  and  a  care- 
ful and  logical  interpretation  of  their  indications  under 
the  application  of  the  first  principles  and  laws  of  thought. 
Nothing  is  to  be  claimed  as  established  that  is  not  sus- 
tained by  the  facts  and  the  necessary  demands  of  reason. 

5.  The  relation  of  Natural  to  Christian  Theologiy  is 
that  of  part  to  the  whole.  Belief  in  the  existence  of  God 
is  presupposed  in  our  acceptance  of  a  revelation.  Natural 
Theology,  therefore,  lies  at  the  basis  of  Revealed  Theology, 
proving  the  existence  of  a  Supreme  Being  to  reveal  Him- 
self. Revealed  Theology  accepts  all  that  may  be  dis- 
covered and  proved  concerning  God  and  His  attributes 
from  data  in  nature  and  consciousness,  but  adds  im- 
mensely to  this  knowledge,  especially  in  disclosing  the 
scheme  of  grace  and  redemption  through  Jesus  Christ. 

6.  The  beginnings  of  effort  to  construct  a  Natural 
Theology  appear  very  early.  In  estimating  its  beginning, 
however,  we  must  leave  out  of  view  all  the  ages  in  which 
men  believed  in  the  existence  of  God  or  of  some  supreme 
power  without  attempts  to  establish  it  by  systematic  or 
logical  proof.  Natural  Theology  must  be  distinguished 
from  natural  religion,  the  latter  appearing  long  before  the 
truths  it  implies  were  regularly  and  distinctly  formulated. 
Moreover,  the  Hebrew  people,  forming  a  circle  illuminated 
by  special  revelation,  must  be  excluded  from  view  in  this 


INTRODUCTION.  5 

connection.  Their  relio'ion  was  a  revealed  religion,  and 
they  constructed  no  Natural  Theology.  But  the  most 
ancient  literatures  of  other  nations  present  many  of  the 
truths  of  Natural  Theology  in  more  or  less  systematized 
form.  The  Ved((s  of  the  Hindus,  the  Zend-Avesta  of  the 
Persians,  the  .Book  of  the  Dead  and  other  writings  of  the 
ancient  Egyptians,  contain  illustrations  of  the  earliest 
known  efforts  of  the  human  mind  toward  a  knowledge  of 
God.  Whatever  theistic  truth  and  faith  are  found  among 
the  Greeks  and  Romans  must  be  counted  as  derived  from 
reason  and  nature.  Socrates  and  Plato,  especially,  among 
the  Greeks,  and  Cicero  and  Seneca  among  the  Romans, 
made  earnest,  and  to  some  degree  successful  efforts  to 
give  rational  account  of  men's  spontaneous  faith  in  the 
divine  existence,  and  their  necessary  conception  of  His 
character.'  In  all  ages  of  the  Christian  Church  theolo- 
gians have  claimed  that  the  works  of  nature  exhibit  the 
power,  wisdom,  and  goodness  of  their  Author,  and  that 
revelation  assumes  this  fact.  To  construct  the  knowledge 
thus  attainable  into  a  definite  system,  however,  seems  not, 
for  a  long  time,  to  have  awakened  any  marked  effort. 
The  TJieologia  Naturalls  sive  Liber  Creaturarum  of  the 
Spanish  physician,  Raymond  de  Sabunde,  teacher  in  the 
University  of  Toulouse  in  the  early  part  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  is  said  to  have  been  the  first  work  that,  on  the 
assumption  that  two  books  have  been  given  men,  one  of 
nature  and  the  other  of  revelation,  confined  itself  to  a 
theological  interpretation  of  the  former.  Faustus  Socinus, 
however,  maintained  that  a  Natural  Theology  was  impos- 
sible, as  no  knowledge  of  God  was  attainable  except  from 

1  See  Xenophon's  Memorabilia,  1,4;  IV,  3,  13;  Pl:ito"s  Tinueus;  Cicero's  De 
Natura  Deorum.  Lib.  II;  Cocker's  Christianity  and  Greek  P/iilosop/iy,  pp. 
377-379. 


6  INTRODUCTION. 

the  Scriptures.  In  this  he  has  had  but  a  feeble  following. 
During-  the  seveiiteentli  century,  Natural  Theology  rose  in 
increasing  prominence,  and  flourished  in  a  sort  of  golden 
age  in  the  eighteenth.  Deistical  writers  sought  to  exalt 
it  at  the  expense  of  Christianity,  representing  it  as  the 
real  truth,  to  which  the  Scriptures  added  nothing  of  value. 
They  looked  on  Christianity  as  simply  a  "  republication  of 
natural  religion."  But  both  these  extreme  views,  the 
deistical  exaggerations  of  nature  and  reason  on  the  one 
hand,  and  the  denial  of  the  possibility  of  Natural  Theology 
on  the  other,  have  failed  to  secure  or  hold  the  confidence 
of  well  balanced  thinkers.  The  numerous  able  works  which 
followed  in  the  eighteenth  century  and  since,  of  Clarke, 
Newton,  Derham,  Neuwentyt,  Paley,  and  the  Bridge- 
water  Treatises  by  Chalmers,  Whewell,  Kidd,  Roget, 
Buckland,  and  Sir  Charles  Bell,  Lord  Brougham's  Dis- 
course on  Natural  Theology^  the  Burnett  Prize  Essays 
by  Thompson  and  Tulloch,  Cooke's  Religion  and  Chemis- 
try, McCosh's  Tyiyiexd  Forms,  Chadbourne's  Naturcd  The- 
ology, Cocker's  Theistic  ConceiMon  of  the  World,  Flint's 
Theism  and  Anti-Theistical  Theories,  Borden  P.  Bowne's 
Studies  in  Theism,  Diman's  Theistic  Argmnhit  as  Affected 
by  Recent  Theories,  Janet's  Final  Causes,  Dr.  S.  Harris' 
Philosophical  Basis  of  Theism,  and  an  immense  number 
of  review  articles  continually  appearing,  have  given  the 
subject  great  wealth  of  discussion.  They  have  abundantly 
shown  that  while  the  Bible  is  to  a  large  extent  a  republi- 
cation of  theistic  truths  and  spiritual  laws  discernible  by 
reason  from  nature  and  the  conscience,  and  has,  in  the 
doctrines  of  redemption,  given  the  materials  of  a  dis- 
tinctively revealed  theology,  there  are,  nevertheless, 
abundant  sources,  and  a  clear  place,  for  a  reliable  Natural 


INTKODUCTION".  7 

Theolog-y,  and  tliat  this  is  necessary  as  laying  the  deep 
foundations  for  the  Christian  system. 

7.  The  importance  of  Natural  Theology  becomes  evi- 
dent from  its  relation  to  all  the  great  questions  and 
interests  of  life. 

(1)  To  religio)i.  If  religion  is  to  vindicate  its  reason- 
ableness and  right  to  a  place  in  human  life,  it  must  rest 
on  an  assured  knowledge  of  the  object  of  worship.  This 
is  true  whether  it  be  the  Christian  religion  or  any  other. 
Christianity  is  a  large  phenomenon  in  the  world.  Other 
religions,  also,  all  rest  on  belief  in  God.  Unless  the 
question  of  the  existence  and  character  of  God  be 
answered,  and  answered  so  as  to  satisfy  the  reason  of  man- 
kind, religion  must  lose  its  very  foundation  truths  and 
die  out  from  among  men.  Religion  cannot  stand  if  belief 
in  God  cannot  be  sustained  and  justified  in  reason. 

(2)  To  inorality  it  is  hardly  less  essential.  If  experi- 
ence teaches  anytliing  plainly,  it  is  that  there  is  no  effect- 
ual dynamic  for  a  pure,  reliable,  healthy  morality  apart 
from  belief  in  the  existence  of  God  and  a  conviction  of 
responsibility  to  Him  as  a  holy  and  righteous  governor. 
To  build  up  a  sentiment  of  duty  that  can  dominate  the 
passions  and  hold  steady  sway  against  the  temptations  to 
vice,  wrong  doing,  and  destructive  irregularities,  without 
the  quickening  and  supporting  power  of  belief  in  a 
supreme  ruler,  is  impossible.  Atlieistic  ethical  systems 
are  practically  impotent.  They  may  present  the  ethical 
distinctions  plainly,  but  their  sanctions  are  gone.  En- 
forcing motive  power  disappears  when  faith  in  a  personal 
God  is  abandoned.  Even  common  morality,  in  the  ordi- 
nary plane  of  relationship  between  man  and  man  in  daily 
life,  loses  tone  and  nerve,  and  falls  into  corruption  when- 


8  INTRODUCTION. 

ever  touched  by  the  breath  of  skepticism  on  this  point. 
But  more  is  true.  If  there  be  a  God,  man  must  sustain 
moral  relations,  that  is,  relations  of  duty,  to  Him;  and  the 
human  virtue  that  takes  no  account  of  Him  must  be  at 
best  one-sided  and  defective.  Thus  all  the  high  and  un- 
speakable interests  of  morality  are  involved  in  the  answer 
given  to  the  question  of  the  divine  existence  and  govern- 
ment. 

(3)  To  the  state  and  civil  prosperity  Natural  Theology 
is  of  equal  importance.  If  theism  is  essential  to  both 
religion  and  morality,  it  is  at  once  evident  that  it  must  be 
essential  also  to  social  order  and  national  welfare.  The 
testimony  of  history  is  emphatic,  that  a  well  ordered  and 
prosperous  state  is  an  impossibility  without  it.  So  strongly 
has  the  experience  of  nations  reflected  this  truth,  that 
great  statesmen  have  put  it  into  the  proposition  that,  were 
there  no  religion  among  a  people  one  would  have  to  be 
invented  for  state  purposes.  It  is  a  very  expressive  fact 
in  this  connection,  that  in  common  law  atheism  is  counted 
as  disqualifying  a  witness  in  courts  of  justice.  The  truths 
of  Natural  Theology  are  therefore  of  vital  moment  to  all 
the  great  interests  of  society  and  the  state. 

(4)  They  also  concern  i^hilosophy  and  science.  The 
theistic  conception  of  the  world  is  of  necessity  widely 
different  from  the  atheistical  conception  of  it.  While  the 
facts  and  phenomena  of  nature  remain  the  same,  the 
explanation  of  them,  and  their  relations  and  significance, 
become  greatly  changed.  If  theism  and  atheism  must 
necessarily  bear  different  fruits  in  religion  and  morals,  they 
must  also  produce  different  systems  of  science  and  philos- 
ophy. They  cannot,  and  do  not,  solve  the  problems  of 
nature,  life,  and  mind  in  the  same  way.     These  will  always 


INTRODUCTION".  9 

be  found  to  depend  very  greatly  on  the  position  the  scien- 
tist takes  toward  the  truths  which  theology  considers. 
The  whole  scientific  system  will  take  color  from  the  light 
which  falls  upon  it.  He  who  finds  in  reason  and  nature 
clear  evidence  of  a  supreme  intelligent  First  Cause,  and  he 
who  finds  there  no  proof  of  such  Being  —  he  who  believes 
material  force  to  be  the  potency  and  only  source  of  all 
things,  and  he  who  believes  that  the  universe  originated 
and  is  ordered  by  an  intelligent  and  self-existent  Will, 
must  inevitably  look  upon  the  world,  life,  history,  and 
upon  themselves  so  very  differently,  that  the  truth  or  falsity 
of  the  conclusions  of  theology  becomes  a  matter  of  indis- 
putable and  momentous  importance. 


[I.    THE   IDEA   OF   GOD  — ITS   CONTENT,   GENESIS,   AND 
ORIGINAL  FORM. 

1.  The  idea  of  God  has  been  a  variable  conception, 
ranging  from  a  very  undefined  impression  of  some  Higher 
Power,  as  among  barbarous  tribes,  to  the  distinct  and 
developed  conception  of  a  Self-existent  Personal  Being, 
infinite  in  intelligence,  power,  and  goodness,  the  First 
Cause,  Maker,  and  Ruler  of  the  universe,  as  found  in  the 
mind  of  the  Christian  philosopher  and  theologian.  God 
is  conceived  of  as  the  first  principle,  ground,  and  reason  of 
all  existence,  not  identical  with  the  universe,  but  its 
Author,  at  once  above  and  immanent  in  it. 

Cudworth  says  :  "The  true  and  proper  idea  of  God,  in 
its  most  contracted  form,  is  this  :  A  being  absolutely  per- 
fect." ' 

Descartes  defines  the  idea  :     "  By  the  name  of  God   I 

1  Int.  System,  Chap.  IV,  §  8. 


10  INTRODUCTION. 

understand  a  substance  infinite,  eternal,  immutable,  inde- 
pendent, omniscient,  almighty,  by  which  myself  and  all 
other  things  that  are  have  been  created  and  produced."  ' 

Sir  Isaac  Newton  :  "  The  true  God  is  a  living,  intelli- 
gent, powerful  being,  and  from  His  other  perfections  it 
follows  that  He  is  supreme  or  most  perfect.  He  is  eternal 
and  infinite,  omnipotent  and  omniscient;  that  is.  His  dura- 
tion reaches  from  eternity  to  eternity.  His  presence  from 
infinity  to  infinity.  He  governs  all  things,  and  knows  all 
things  that  are  or  can  be  done.  He  is  not  eternity  and 
infinity,  but  eternal  and  infinite.  He  is  not  duration  or 
space,  but  he  endures  and  is  present."  ^ 

Dr.  Henry  N.  Day,  of  New  Haven:  "God  is  an  all- 
perfect  being  —  one;  real;  of  essential  energy  which  is 
characterized  as  rational;  absolute  as  to  the  grounds  of 
His  existence  and  action;  infinite  in  duration,  presence, 
and  power;  the  source  of  all  other  being,  and  sovereign 
over  all;  and  morally  complete  in  holiness  and  blessed- 
ness." ^ 

Dr.  B.  F.  Cocker,  University  of  Michigan  :  "  An  un- 
conditioned will,  or  self-directive  power,  seeing  its  own 
way,  and  having  the  reason  and  law  of  its  action  in  itself 
alone."  " 

These  definitions  will  suffice  to  give  the  chief  elements 
of  the  idea  as  it  is  now  matured  in  Christian  theism. 
How  far  it  could  have  been  developed  by  the  mere  light 
of  nature  it  is  impossible  to  determine.  Perhaps  Aris- 
totle may  be  regarded  as  exhibiting  the  highest  reach 
without  revelation.  But  his  statement:  "  God  is  a  living- 
being,  eternal,  most  excellent,  so  that  life  and  continuous 

^Med.,  III.  '^  Principla.  ^  Onfli/ies  of  Ontological  Science,  p.  235.  i  The- 
istic  Conception  of  the  World,  p.  33. 


INTRODUCTION.  11 

and  eternal  duration  of  l)eing  belong  to  God,"  falls  far 
short  of  the  fulness  of  conception  presented  in  Christian 
doctrine.  But  it  is  not  necessary  to  settle  this  question 
here.  For,  while  the  idea,  so  filled  and  rounded  out  in 
consequence  of  the  full  light  of  revelation,  has  been  de- 
veloped into  a  form  much  beyond  the  possibilities  of 
merely  rational  theology,  the  argument  which  Natural 
Theology  proposes  to  conduct  is  equally  valid  upon  a  less 
complete  conception.  For  its  purposes  the  argument  may, 
at  the  start,  include  in  the  idea  of  God  no  more  than  that 
of  a  Self-existent  First  Cause  as  the  Creator  and  Ruler  of 
the  universe. 

2.  The  genesis  of  the  idea  of  God.  How  it  first  arose 
in  the  human  mind,  or  fixed  itself  there,  need  not  indeed 
be  here  settled.  For  it  is  not  an  essential  point  in  the 
evidence  of  its  truth.  Yet  it  is  of  some  importance,  as 
certain  theistic  arguments  gain  or  lose  force  according  as 
one  view  or  another  is  adopted  on  this  point. 

There  is  a  class  of  explanations  that  may  at  once  be 
justly  set  aside,  both  because  of  their  intrinsic  absurdity 
and  because  they  are  refuted  in  the  end  by  the  whole 
force  of  the  theistic  evidence.  The  explanations,  often 
repeated,  which  assert,  for  instance,  that  the  notion  of 
deity  is  a  phantom,  born  originally  of  ignorant  human 
dread  and  fear  in  presence  of  the  terrible  and  mysterious 
phenomena  of  nature^  ;  that  it  began  in  a  superstitious 
reverence  for  natural  forces;  that  it  is  a  crafty  invention 
of  designing  priests  and  rulers;  that  it  arose  from  rever- 
ence for  dead  ancestors  whom  respect  and  affection 
elevated  to  divine  position,  all  fall  to  pieces  the  moment 
earnest  and  philosophic  inquiry  is  turned  upon  the  sub- 

1  Lucretius:  De  Natura  Rerum,  Lib.  VI,  50-70;  Comte's  Positive  Philosophy. 


12  INTRODUCTION. 

ject.  The  atheistic  theories  of  our  day,  with  whatever 
learning  and  skill  they  have  been  elaborated,  are  found 
resolvable  into  reconstructions  and  modifications  of  these 
inadequate  and  futile  hypotheses/  A  sufficient  refutation 
of  them  comes  in  the  fact  that  they  all  derive  religion 
from  the  lower  human  faculties,  and  represent  its  object 
of  worship  as  only  a  creation  of  ignorance  and  mistaken 
fear.  How  then  is  its  permanence  to  be  accounted  for  ? 
What  is  due  to  trembling  ignorance  must  die  when  ignor- 
ance dies.  The  spectres  of  night  must  vanish  when  the 
day  comes.  But  the  conception  of  God  has  grown  clearer 
and  stronger  as  man  has  advanced  in  knowledge  and 
science.  The  full  radiance  of  the  highest  civilization  has 
had  no  effect  but  to  bring  it  up  into  purer  and  bolder 
distinctness  and  strength.  The  idea,  concerning  the  valid- 
ity of  which  Natural  Theology  inquires,  is  one  which, 
whatever  be  its  genesis  and  explanation,  thus  maintains 
its  place  and  authority,  and  has  grown  most  positive 
under  the  fullest  light  of  science  and  culture.  The  ex- 
planations which  credit  it  to  the  gross  ignorance  and 
phantom  fears  of  an  early  condition  of  human  savagery 
are  thoroughly  overthrown  by  the  simple  fact  that  the 
strength  of  theism  belongs  to  the  present  age  and  the 
highest  civilization. 

But  apart  from  these  explanations,  necessarily  rejected 
by  their  utter  insufficiency,  there  are  three  views  that 
have  been  and  may  be  held  as  to  the  origin  of  the  idea. 

First,  that  it  originated  through  a  primitive  revela- 
tion. The  first  man  or  first  men  are  supposed  to  have 
received  a  knowledge  of  God  by  direct  supernatural  dis- 
closures of  Himself  and  His  will  ;  and  the  various  notions 

1  Strauss,  Biichner,  Bleek,  Herbert  Spencer,  etc. 


INTRODUCTION".  13 

of  a  divine  being,  as  found  throug-hout  the  world,  are 
looked  upon  as  the  broken  and  scattered  rays  of  original 
revelation.  Tlie  idea,  thus  given  by  special  and  imme- 
diate divine  instruction,  has  been  continued  by  tradition 
through  all  the  ages  and  in  all  the  branchings  of  the  world- 
filling  race.  This  view  has  been  losing  ground  through 
the  recent  investigations  and  discussions  of  ethnology, 
philology,  and  comparative  mythology/  The  discrediting 
of  this  explanation,  however,  is  not  necessarily  a  denial  of 
a  primitive  revelation.  It  may  readily  be  allowed  that 
important  supernatural  instruction  was  given  to  the  first 
human  pair,  furnishing  the  essential  truths  of  religion, 
and  that  this  knowledge  was  enlarged  by  repeated  later 
communications.  It  is  reasonable  to  believe  that  some 
rays  of  light  thus  given  have  reached  into  remotest  places 
and  may  linger  among  many  nations.  But  tradition  has 
shown  itself  to  be  too  uncertain  an  instrument  to  justify 
the  belief  that  it  has  carried  this  truth  into  every  tribe  in 
which  it  is  found,  and  has  preserved  it  through  all  the 
darkness.  The  explanation  seems  insufficient  to  cover  all 
the  wide  range  of  facts  concerned.  Moreover,  it  is  not 
certain  that  though  such  revelation  was  given,  the  idea  of 
God  was  entirely  due  to  it  or  originated  by  it.  It  is 
doubtful  whether  it  could  have  been  more  than  the  occa- 
sion of  developing  it;  since  in  a  divine  manifestation  at 
any  time  the  human  mind,  it  would  seem,  must  at  least 
identify  as  God  the  being  who  so  reveals  himself.  What- 
ever may  be  the  occasion  of  the  birth  of  the  idea,  the  idea 
of  God  must  have  its  genesis  tait/dn,  the  mind,  rising  there 
in  recognition  of  the  Revealer.      If  there  be  a  God  as  the 

1  Flint's  Theism,  pp.  22,  33S;  Fairbairn's  Studies  in  Philosophy  and  Relig- 
ion, p.  -21;  Cocker's  Christianity  and  Greek  Philosophy,  pp.  86-96. 


14  INTRODUCTION. 

author  of  the  universe,  nature  itself  becomes  a  revelation 
of  Him.  Probably,  therefore,  we  dare  not  credit  super- 
natural revelation,  any  more  than  natural,  with  being 
more  than  the  occasion  of  the  subjective  genesis  of  the 
concept  of  God. 

Secondly,  that  it  has  arisen  naturally  and  spontane- 
ously in  the  human  soul.  This  explanation  branches  into 
two  forms.  One  is  that  the  idea  of  God  is  given  to  con- 
sciousness purely  from  what  is  within  the  mind  —  not 
simply  an  a  priori  necessary  conviction,  but  one  whose 
basis  and  developing  force  are  wholly  internal.  It  occurs 
when  the  soul  looks  down  into  the  depths  and  contents  of 
its  own  consciousness.  This  theory  is  illustrated  in  the 
view  which  traces  it  to  a  feeling  of  dependence  and  obli- 
gation, bringing  the  soul  face  to  face  with  the  divine. 
That  to  which  the  consciousness  of  dependence  points  is 
called  God.  Man,  it  is  said,  learns  to  pray  before  he 
learns  to  reason.  "  He  feels  within  him,"  says  Dean 
Munsel,  '*the  consciousness  of  a  Supreme  Being,  and  the 
instinct  of  worship,  before  he  can  argue  from  effects  to 
causes  or  estimate  the  traces  of  wisdom  and  benevolence 
scattered  through  the  creation."^  Some  have  claimed 
that  "there  is  a  connection  between  God  and  the  soul,  as 
between  light  and  the  eye,  sound  and  the  ear,  food  and 
the  palate."  ^  The  other  form  of  this  explanation  repre- 
sents the  idea  as  springing  up  in  the  mind  under  the  sug- 
gestive power  of  the  external  universe.  It  is  awakened, 
as  an  inference,  through  the  mind's  contemplation  of 
nature,  under  the  play  of  thought  in  the  necessary  action 
and  reaction  between  reason  and  the  external  world.  In 
the  first  of  these  forms,  it  is  suggested  by  what  the  mind 
\  Limits  of  Religious  Thought,  p.  115.  '^  Ibid,  p.  249. 


INTKODUCTION".  15 

finds  in  itself;  in  the  second,  by  what  is  external  to  it  — 
from  the  revealing  power  of  the  great  universe,  speaking 
to  us  of  its  author.  Whether  the  human  soul,  in  its 
purely  subjective  data,  would  ever  attain  this  so-called 
consciousness  of  God,  is  questionable.  At  least,  no  veri- 
fication of  the  claim  is  possible,  since  no  human  con- 
sciousness can  ever  be  found  wholly  destitute  of  knowl- 
edge of  external  objects,  to  report  the  possibilities  of 
this  inner  source  alone.  Indeed,  the  consciousness  itself 
awakes  only  under  the  stimulation  of  the  sense-percep- 
tions, and  the  intuitions  become  possible  only  in  connec- 
tion with  knowledge  of  the  material  world.  But  there 
can  hardly  be  the  least  doubt  that  there  is  something  in 
the  existence,  order,  structures,  forces,  and  movements 
of  the  grand  universe  in  which  we  are  placed,  and  their 
kindling  action  on  the  rational  faculties  of  intuition  and 
inference,  that  tends  to  originate  and  develop  the  idea 
of  God  in  the  human  soul  when  its  faculties  are  mature 
and  in  normal  healthy  action. 

This  general  explanation,  finding  the  genesis  of  the 
idea,  not  in  a  primitive  revelation,  but  in  the  natural  and 
necessary  action  of  the  mind  as  impressed  by  the  works  of 
creation,  has  the  advantage  of  being  in  harnlony  with  the 
great  fact  of  man's  unquestionably  religious  nature.  He 
everywhere  and  in  all  ages  appears  with  very  original,  pro- 
found, and  almost  ineradicable  religious  instincts  and  apti- 
tudes. There  is  force  in  the  statement  that  if  man  were 
dependent  on  a  supernatural  revelation  for  the  idea  of 
God,  he  would  seem  to  have  what  Schelling  has  strik- 
ingly called  "  an  original  atheism  of  consciousness."  This 
implication  is  avoided  in  finding  the  origin  of  the  idea 
in  the  natural  knowledge  of  mankind. 


16  INTKODUCTION. 

Thirdly,  as  these  two  sources  are  not  necessarily  an- 
tagonistic, they  may  concur,  and  probably  have  concurred 
in  some  degree,  at  least  in  some  places,  in  forming  the 
conception.  If  man  enjoyed  a  primitive  revelation,  its 
light  may  have  lingered  in  some  regions  in  broken  and 
faded  rays,  affording  a  starting  point  for  the  working  of 
the  human  mind.  In  others  the  early  light  may  have  been 
lost,  and  men  thrown  upon  purely  natural  resources.  But 
whether  looked  upon  as  the  remains  of  an  original  reve- 
lation or  as  a  spontaneous  natural  conception,  the  idea 
would  at  first  be  exceedingly  defective  or  hardly  formed 
at  all.  No  one  man  alone,  no  one  generation  alone,  could 
have  fully  developed  it  and  given  it  the  completeness  it 
now  has,  as  apprehended  in  the  full  light  of  this  Chris- 
tian age.  Oar  present  idea  of  God,  the  sublimest  and 
most  impressive  the  human  mind  has,  on  any  explana- 
tion of  its  origin,  is  a  growth,  with  the  development  of 
long  centuries  in  it.  It  has  the  fulness  of  a  history  in  it. 
It  has  come  to  us  rounded  out  and  illuminated  under  the 
straining  vision  of  countless  generations  of  earnest  souls 
"feeling  after  Him," and  struggling  into  clearer  and  bet- 
ter conception.  All  the  time,  the  works  of  creation,  the 
events  of  history,  and  the  light  of  revelation  have  been 
pouring  their  maturing  radiance  upon  it.  All  this  has 
made  possible  the  idea  as  it  now  stands  out  in  our  Chris- 
tian theism. 

3.  The  earliest  Form  of  the  idea.  The  question  here 
is  whether  it  was  polytheistic  or  monotheistic.  The  Pos- 
itive Philosophy,  formulated  about  fifty  years  ago,  by 
Auguste  Comte,  and  proceeding  on  the  assumption  that 
the  human  race  necessaril)'  develops  through  the  three 
distinct  stages  or  methods  of  thought  and  knowledge,  the 


INTEODUCTIOJn^.  17 

Theological,  the  Metaphysical,  and  the  Positive,  put  down 
the  earliest  stage  as  theological.  Dividing  this  earliest 
stage  itself  into  three  periods,  it  declared  that  religion 
began  in  Fetishism,  passed  then  into  Polytheism,  and  at 
length  reached  Monotheism.  This  marking  of  the  first 
form  as  Fetishistic  seems  to  have  been  adopted  from  De 
Brosses,  a  writer  of  Voltaire's  day.  It  has  been  widely 
accepted  and  defended,  especially  by  writers  who  hold  the 
evolutionist  derivative  origin  of  man  from  the  lower  ani- 
mals. It  represents  the  beginning  of  religion  as  consisting 
in  the  adoration  or  worship  of  the  common  objects  of 
nature,  animals,  trees,  streams,  hills,  or  pieces  of  wood,  as 
possessed  of  supernatural  powers.  Prof.  Max  Muller's 
examination  of  this  hypothesis  has  cut  it  up  by  the  roots, 
showing  it  to  be  utterly  without  support  of  facts,  and  in- 
trinsically a  gross  misconception.  '  The  further  claim  of 
the  scheme,  that  before  religion  reached  the  conception 
of  one  God  it  was  polytheistic,  worshipping  many  local, 
national,  or  tutelary  divinities,  has  little  more  support  than 
the  theory  of  Fetishism,  and  is  opposed  by  strong,  and,  we 
believe,  decisive  evidence.  Polytheism  credits  the  differ- 
ent parts  and  operations  of  nature  to  different  and  numer- 
ous supernatural  beings  ;  and  it  looks  plausible  when  the 
unification  of  all  natural  causes  into  the  will  of  one  God  is 
represented  as  marking,  not  the  earliest,  but  a  later  and 
advanced  stage  of  thought  and  development.  The  variety 
of  the  effects  at  first  to  be  accounted  for  is  supposed  to 
lead,  not  only  naturally,  but  necessarily,  to  an  assumption 
of  a  variety  of  causes,  and  make  the  earliest  idea  of  deity 
polytheistic.      It   is   alleged  that  the   historical   evidence 

1  Origin  and  Groivtk  of  Religion,  pp.  50-123. 


18  INTRODUCTION. 

points  to  this  ;  and  that  no  trace  of  monotheism  is  to  be 
found  in  the  world  except  with  a  polytheism  behind  it.  It 
is  by  no  means  certain,  however,  that  the  natural  or  neces- 
sary movement  of  the  mind,  on  the  first  impressions  from 
nature,  impressions  often,  doubtless,  very  general,  and  from 
viewing  it  in  confused  mass,  would  be  to  an  immediate 
multiplication  of  the  difficult  conception  of  divine  exist- 
ence. The  unity  of  nature  is  about  as  obtrusive  a  fact 
as  is  its  variety.  Moreover,  "  no  human  mind  could  con- 
ceive the^idea  of  gods  without. having  previously  conceived 
the  idea  of  a  god."  The  singular,  in  thought  as  in  lan- 
guage, precedes  the  plural.  And  the  results  of  the  latest 
and  best  critical,  philological,  archasological,  and  historical 
research  point  strongly  to  a  primitive  monotheism,  and  to 
subsequent  obscurations  of  the  idea  of  one  God  by  appli- 
cations of  it  to  local,  national  and  specific  relations.  They 
bring  out  the  fact  that  while  the  early  literature  of  the 
various  nations  of  the  Aryan  or  Indo-European  family  ex- 
hibits a  multitudinous  polytheism,  it  becomes  simpler  the 
further  it  is  traced  back.  "  The  younger  the  polytheism 
the  fewer  the  gods."  When  the  names  for  God,  as  found 
in  all  the  later  or  existing  branches  of  this  race,  are  exam- 
ined and  compared  —  as  the  Sanscrit  J)ycnis,  the  Greek 
Zeus,  the  Latin  Ju,  in  Jupiter,  the  Gothic  7\us,  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  The,  the  Scandinavian  Tyr,  the  old  German  Ziu  or 
Zio  —  they  are  found  to  have  a  common  root  from  the  old 
home  where  the  race  once  dwelt  together,  before  their  dis- 
persions or  migrations.  So  that  "  in  the  period  that  lay 
behind  the  Homeric  poems  and  the  Vedas  and  the  earliest 
Gothic  and  Scandinavian  legends,  when  Greek  and  Roman, 
Indian,  Celt,  and  Teuton  were  still  a  single  people,  a  single 
name   for  God  was  in  use."     We  are  entitled  to  accept 


INTRO  DL'CTIOi^'.  19 

with  much  confidence  the  conclusion  of  Prof.  Max  Muller, 
who  says  :  "If  an  expression  had  been  given  to  that  prim- 
itive intuition  of  the  deity,  it  would  have  been  'There  is  a 
God,'  but  not  3^et  'There  is  but  one  God.'  The  latter 
form  of  faith,  the  belief  in  one  God,  is  properly  called 
monotheism,  whereas  the  term  henotheism  '  would  best 
express  the  faith  in  a  single  God.""  This  "henotheism" 
designates  the  initial  form  of  unity,  before  there  had  been 
yet  joined  with  it  a  distinct  negation  of  more  than  one, 
and  when  the  same  infinite,  invisible  power  was  worshipped 
under  different  names  drawn  from  the  chief  objects  that 
seemed  to  reveal  its  presence.  This,  and  not  polytheism, 
Max  Muller  finds  to  be  the  earliest  form  in  India  and  other 
countries.  As  to  Egypt,  where  are  found  records  among 
the  most  ancient  of  any  in  the  world,  M.  Emanuel  Rouge 
says  :  "  The  first  characteristic  of  the  religion  is  the  unity 
of  God,  most  energetically  expressed:  God,  One,  Sole,  and 
Only  ;  no  others  with  Him.  He  is  the  only  Being  living 
in  truth."  ^  P.  Le  Page  Renouf,  also  an  accredited  Egyp- 
tologist, adds  confirmatory  testimony,  and  tells  of  texts  in 
the  early  mythology  of  that  country,  "  wherein  Ra,  Osiris, 
Amon,  and  all  other  gods  disappear,  except  as  simple 
7iames,  and  the  unity  of  God  is  asserted  in  the  noblest  lan- 
guage of  monotheistic  religion."  *  As  to  China,  where 
again  we  have  one  of  our  deepest  openings  into  antiquity, 
James  Legge,  Professor  of  the  Chinese  language  and  lit- 
erature in  the  University  of  Oxford,  one  of  the  most  com- 
petent   witnesses,    says    of    the    several    primitive    words 

1  From  ii?,  eyos,  one,  as  opposed  to  fxovoi;,  one  ouly. 

2  Chips  from  a  Gertnan  Workshop,  p.  349. 

3  Quoted  by  P.  Le  Page  Renouf,  Hibbert  Lectures  on  the  Religion  of  Ancient 
Egypt,  p.  93. 

!  The  Rdigion  of  Ancient  Egypt,  p.  92. 


20  INTRODUCTION". 

for  God  :  "The  two  characters  show  us  the  religion  of 
the  ancient  Chinese  as  a  monotheism.  .  .  .  Five  thousand 
years  ago,  the  Chinese  were  monotheists  —  not  heno- 
theists,  but  monotheists  —  atid  this  monotheism  was  in 
danger  of  being  corrupted."  ' 

Similar  interpretations  of  the  indications  in  the  earliest 
religions  of  the  race  might  be  quoted  from  other  authori- 
ties. They  make  it  fair  to  suppose  that  the  monotheistic 
form  was  the  most  ancient,  and  that  polytheism  represents 
corruptions  of  it.  Polytheistic  mythologies  are  broken 
lights. 

4.  The  relation  of  this  idea  of  God  to  the  aim  of  Nat- 
ural Theology.  It  furnishes  the  starting  point  for  the 
argument  as  to  the  divine  existence  and  character.  The 
aim  of  the  discussion  is  to  show  the  validity  of  the  idea, 
or  prove  the  real  existence  of  the  Being  for  whom  this 
idea  stands  in  the  human  mind.  It  proposes  to  show  that 
it  is  not  an  empty  phantom  and  delusion,  a  false  impres- 
sion and  misleading  dream,  but  represents  a  necessary 
and  grand  realit}^ 

1  The  Religion  of  China  (1881),  pp.  11,  16. 


NATURAL   THEOLOGY; 

OR, 

RATIONAL  THEISM. 


PART  I. 

EVIDENCES  OF  THE  DIVINE  EXISTENCE. 

SINCE  tlie  proofs  of  God's  existence  must  be  the  mani- 
festations He  has  given  of  Himself,  they  must  be  as 
varied  and  numerous  as  are  the  phenomena  of  the  whole 
world  of  mind  and  matter,  on  which  He  has  imprinted  His 
power  and  thought,  and  which  are  now  open  to  our 
knowledge  through  perception,  consciousness,  and  reason. 
The  universe  in  all  its  matter,  mind,  and  history,  presents 
the  pages  of  the  great  volume  of  His  self-disclosure.  If 
there  be  a  God  as  creator  and  sovereign  of  all,  then  all 
must  speak  of  Him.  The  theistic  evidences  must,  there- 
fore, be  literally  countless,  and  be  found  in  all  the  powers, 
movements,  laws,  and  relations  of  both  organic  and  inor- 
ganic nature,  and  the  whole  realm  of  human  mind  and 
history.  No  one  source  of  evidence  excludes  another,  no 
legitimate  reasoning  process  shuts  off  the  right  of  any  other 
intrinsically  sound  process,  or  makes  it  useless.  Each  one 
of  these  countless  evidences  and  processes  may  furnish  its 
own  separate  and  legitimate  testimony,  and  this  testimony 

21 


22  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

may  be  reflected  in  a  thousand  different  ways  to  different 
minds.  It  is  fair  to  assume  that  if  there  is  a  single 
evidence,  there  are  many  evidences.  If  there  is  one, 
there  are  myriad  points  of  light,  revealing  the  divine.  In 
their  individual  and  separate  force,  many  of  these  evi- 
dences may  fall  short  of  a  full  proof.  Some  of  them, 
however,  under  the  necessities  of  logical  thought  and 
according  to  principles  or  laws  of  evidence  held  as  fully 
sufficient  to  establish  truth  in  any  of  the  sciences,  may, 
even  in  their  individual  and  single  force,  carry  the  conclu- 
sion legitimately  up  to  the  grade  of  satisfactory  proof. 
But  the  full  proof  is  to  be  found  in  no  one  argument  or 
source  of  argument  alone.  The  evidences  are  in  the 
largest  and  truest  sense  cumulative.  "They  concur  and 
unite  into  a  single  all-comprehensive  argument,  which  is 
just  the  sum  of  all  the  indications  of  God  discoverable  in 
all  departments  of  nature,  thought,  and  history."  It  is  only 
when  all  realms  have  been  examined,  when  all  special 
arguments  and  separate  evidences  are  brought  together 
and  looked  upon  in  their  concurrent  testimony,  each  cor- 
roborating and  supporting  the  others  and  joining  its 
logical  demand  for  the  same  conclusion,  that  the  theistic 
proof  swells  into  its  real  and  legitimate  force.  The  full 
proof  is  not  in  one  thing,  or  only  a  few  things,  or  in  one 
sort  of  argument  alone,  but  in  the  bearing  and  trend,  the 
implications  and  demands  of  numberless  things,  the  con- 
silience and  accumulation  of  manifold  separate  and  inde- 
pendent evidences. 

Attention  needs  to  be  called  to  this  because  some  the- 
istic writers  have  rested  the  entire  proof  on  a  single  kind 
of  evidence,  disparaging  or  discrediting  all  other  arguments. 
Not  unfrequently,  for  instance;,  misled   by  the  plausible 


EVIDENCES    OF   THE    DIVINE    EXISTENCE.  23 

teaching  of  an  unsound  philosophy,  they  have  denied  the 
validity  and  value  of  the  whole  physico-theological  argu- 
ment, and,  with  Kant,  found  the  true  proof  only  in  the 
moral  evidence,  or  with  others,  only  in  an  immediate  con- 
sciousness of  God.  We  cannot  but  think  that  this  restric- 
tion of  the  theistic  proof  to  but  one  argument  or  only 
several,  is  utterly  unwarranted,  and  as  harmful  as  it  is 
foolish.  When  the  truth  is  thus  unwisely  and  wrongly 
made  to  rest  on  such  limited  and  perhaps  obscure  ground, 
the  impression  is  naturally  created  in  superficial  men,  that 
its  foundations  are  very  meagre  and  insecure.  Any  doubt 
raised  on  the  remaining  evidence  throws  them  into  help- 
less skepticism.  Well-meaning  and  earnest  supporters  of 
theistic  truth  have  often  given  aid  and  advantage  to  its 
enemies,  and  wrought  in  the  interest  of  unbelief  by  this 
mistaken  procedure.  Scarcely  less  unwise  and  less  harm- 
ful has  this  been  than  the  position  assumed  by  some  Chris- 
tian believers,  that  the  existence  of  God,  though  a  great 
truth,  is  a  truth  that  does  not  admit  of  proof  at  all,  but  is 
to  be  accepted  by  faith  alone  on  the  information  of  revela- 
tion. These  go  so  far  as  to  assume  that  "  God  has  left 
himself  without  witness,"  except  in  these  Scriptures,  and 
appear  to  take  no  account  of  the  teaching  of  these  Script- 
ures themselves,  that  "  the  heavens  declare  the  glory  of 
God  and  the  firmament  shows  His  handiwork,"  and  that 
"the  invisible  things  of  Him,  from  the  creation  of  the 
world,  are  clearly  seen,  being  understood  by  the  things 
which  are  made."  And  if  the  universe  of  the  things 
which  are  made  manifests  His  being  anywhere,  it  must 
naturally  and  justly  be  understood  to  manifest  it  every- 
where. A  thousand  points  of  the  divine  operation  would 
have  to  be  rubbed  out  before  He  could  be  hid  from  view, 


24  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

or  the  forthshining  of  His  existence  and  character  entirely- 
clouded.  Much  poor  reasoning  in  the  service  of  theism 
might  be  shown  to  be  poor,  without  at  all  seriously  weak- 
ening the  aggregate  of  valid  evidence. 

In  general,  ttvo  methods  of  proof  have  been  recognized 
and  used  in  theistic  argument.  They  are  the  two  generic 
methods  acknowledged  in  logic.  One  is  the  a  ^jriori 
method,  the  other  the  a  X)08teriori.  According  to  its 
most  ancient  Aristotelian  sense,  a  priori  reasoning  is  that 
which  proceeds  from  cause  to  effect  or  antecedent  to  con- 
sequent. In  modern  times  its  sense  has  been  modified 
and  its  application  extended,  so  as  to  include  any  abstract 
reasoning  from  what  are  known  as  a  priori  or  necessary 
truths,  to  the  conditions  which  such  first-truths  involve. 
As  now  employed,  it  is  reasoning  from  any  general  prin- 
ciples, held  to  be  self-evident,  to  their  applications.  The 
a  posteriori  method,  on  the  contrary,  begins  with  observed 
facts  and  phenomena,  and  tracing  them  backward,  arrives 
at  a  knowledge  of  their  cause.  It  is  from  effect  to  cause, 
from  observed  facts  to  a  general  principle,  from  facts  of 
experience  to  realities  which  must  condition  experience. 
But  this  distinction,  theoretically  clear,  between  these 
two  methods,  becomes  practically  loose  and  uncertain. 
Neither  method  remains  pure,  or  can  be  pursued  alone 
in  actual  argument,  but  each  employs  somewhat  of  the 
other.  They  run  together  and  unite,  so  that  it  is  often 
difficult  to  determine  which  predominates  or  is  the  charac- 
teristic method. 

These  two  methods  have  given  us  the  two  great  and 
leading  forms  of  theistic  proof  —  the  a  priori  method 
giving  the  ontological  proof,  the  a  posteriori^  \\\^  j)hysico- 
theological.     As,  however,  the  physico-theological  proof 


EVIDENCES    OF   THE    DIVINE    EXISTENCE.  25 

is  twofold,  naturally  separating  into  the  so-called  cos- 
mological  and  the  teleological,  and  there  are  evidences 
not  conveniently  included  in  this  division,  and  as  the 
a  priori  and  a  posteriori  methods,  when  brought  into 
actual  use,  so  unite  and  blend  that  they  fail  to  classify  the 
several  arguments  distinctly,  we  will,  for  better  arrange- 
ment, gatlier  the  different  evidences  under  the  following 
heads:  I.  Presumptive  Evidences;  II.  The  Ontolog- 
ICAL  Evidence  ;  III.  The  Cosmological  Evidence  ; 
IV.  The  Teleolo(;ical  Evidence;  V.  The  Moral 
Evidence. 


CHAPTER  I. 

PRESUMPTIVE   EVIDENCE. 

r  I  iHERE  are  various  considerations  that,  while  not 
-^  amounting  to  complete  proofs,  are  yet  so  forciWy 
suggestive  as  at  once  to  throw  strong  presumptions  on 
the  side  of  theism.  They  do  not,  indeed,  demonstrate  its 
truth,  but,  appearing  as  the  first  indications  on  the  very 
face  of  the  subject,  as  it  presents  itself  for  examination, 
they  not  onlv  prepare  the  way  for  the  more  direct  and 
positive  proofs,  but  give  us  the  evident  and  strong  proba- 
bilities from  the  start  —  probabilities  which  ought  to  be 
held  as  of  even  decisive  weight  unless  set  aside  by  con- 
trary proofs.  They  show  the  clear  trend  of  the  whole 
question.  These  considerations  are  naturally  placed  as 
the  initial  evidences  for  the  Divine  Existence. 

1.  The  first  of  these  is  the  universality  of  the  idea  of 
God  in  the  human  mind.  Historical  and  ethnological 
researches,  carried  on  in  late  years  with  great  earnestness 
and  care,  fully  justify  the  statement  that  this  idea  is  con- 
natural to  man.  Its  prevalence  is  justly  held  as  univer- 
sal. Wherever  the  human  mind  has  had  its  normal  and 
healthy  unfolding,  the  idea  has  appeared.  We  are  safe  in 
saying  that  there  has  been  found  no  well  authenticated 
case  of  a  nation  or  race  utterly  without  some  conception 
of  deity  or  conviction  of  the  existence  of  a  Supreme 
Being.  It  is  true  that,  looking  on  the  low  state  of  bar- 
barous tribes  with  the  most  unfavorable  preconceptions. 


PRESUMPTIVE     EVIDENCE.  27 

and  perhaps  unwilling  to  believe  any  knowledge  of  God 
possible  except  from  revelation,  missionaries  and  travel- 
lers have  sometimes  reported  different  peoples,  in  India, 
China,  Australia,  and  Africa,  as  wholly  without  any  idea 
of  a  Divine  Being  or  a  word  to  express  the  idea.  But 
further  inquiry  and  better  knowledge  of  their  language, 
literature  and  life  have  invariably  shown  such  conclusions 
to  have  been  hasty  and  erroneous.  Even  among  the 
lowest  tribes  are  found  objects  of  worship,  to  which  divine 
powers  are  supposed  to  belong. 

It  is  no  exception  to  this  universality,  that  in  many 
places  the  idea  is  exceedingly  crude,  gross,  and  even  gro- 
tesque and  false.  For  at  the  best,  man's  conception  of 
God  is  imperfect,  and  it  is  confessedly  reached  by  different 
peoples  in  very  different  degrees  of  clearness  and  correct- 
ness. In  the  dense  fogs  of  barbarism,  where  hardly  a 
trace  of  the  divine  image  in  man  remains,  the  divine  above 
him,  if  discerned  at  all,  woidd  necessarily  appear  only  as 
an  obscure,  shifting,  gloomy,  and  perhaps  frightful,  phan- 
tom. In  such  low  ignorance  no  truth  of  any  sort  is  seen 
except  in  broken  forms  or  pale  shadows.  Spiritual  concep- 
tions are  simply  as  crude  as  the  knowledge  of  other  great 
realities.  Nor  is  it  to  be  counted  a  fair  exception,  when 
we  are  pointed  to  Buddhism  with  its  hundreds  of  millions 
of  adherents,  and  to  the  so-called  atheism  which,  in  the 
midst  of  our  Christian  civilization,  parades  in  the  assumed 
name  of  philosophy,  science  and  culture.  These  phe- 
nomena present  no  real  conflict  with  the  truth  here  main- 
tained. For  as  to  Buddhism,  the  assertion  that  it  is 
utterly  atheistic  is  more  than  doubted  by  eminent  students 
of  its  literature.^  Buddhism  undoubtedly  rose  on  the 
»  See  Maurice's  Religions  of  the  World,  pp.  93-98;  Max  Muller's  Chips  from 


28  NATURAL  THEOLOGY. 

basis  of  the  Brahmanic  philosophy,  and  this  was  funda- 
mentally monotheistic,  and  held  to  the  existence  of  "an 
Absolute  and  Supreme  Being  as  the  source  of  all  that 
exists."  Brahm  was  "pure  intelligence,"  "sole  and  self- 
existent,"'  the  creator.  Buddha  means  the  same  — 
"absolute  light,"  "perfect  wisdom."  In  denying  the 
existence  of  the  "  devas  "  or  gods  with  which  a  polytheistic 
corruption  had  overlaid  Brahmanisrn,  Buddhism  did  not 
necessarily  deny  this  supreme  intelligence.  The  over- 
throw of  polytheistic  worships  usually  marks  an  advance 
of  a  purer  and  truer  theism.^  Max  Muller,  therefore,  may 
be  right  in  saying  :  "They  threw  away  the  old  names,  but 
they  did  not  throw  away  their  belief  in  that  which  they 
tried  to  name.  After  destroying  the  altars  of  their  old 
gods,  they  built  out  of  the  scattered  bricks  a  new  altar  to 
the  Unknown  God."  ^  That  Buddhism  has  its  temples 
and  worship  and  prayers  does  not  point  toward  an  utter 
atheism.  Even  should  it  in  fact  deny  the  real  existence 
of  any  God  other  than  the  aggregate  intelligence  and 
order  of  the  world,  this  very  denial  confesses  to  the  pres- 
ence of  the  rejected  conception  as  still  revealing  itself  in 
the  mind.  As  to  the  atheism  found  in  Christian  lands, 
the  exception  is  only  apparent.  Besides  being  so  incon- 
siderable as  to  owe  its  notoriety  mainly  to  the  shock  and 
offence  it  gives  to  the  ruling  convictions  of  men,  it  strik- 
ingly fails  to  escape  the  necessity  and  grasp  of  the 
idea  it  claims  to  reject.     Its  appearance  is  not  normal  or 

a  German  Workshop,  Vol.  T,  pp.  224-2.31;  and  The  Origin  and  Growth  of  Relig- 
ion in  India,  pp.  287-298;  Cocker's  Christianity  and  Greek  rhUosnphy,  p.  90. 

1  Schaff-Herzog:   Encyct opcedia.   Art.  Brahmanisrn;   Ram  Chandra  Bose's 
BXndu  Philosophy,  p.  43. 

2  Gillett's  God  in  Human  Thought,  pp.  34-37. 

3  Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion  in  India,  p.  300. 


PRESUMPTIVE     EVIDENCE.  29 

spontaneous,  but  the  result  of  either  speculative  difficul- 
ties or  perverted  moral  inclinations.  It  probably  never 
amounts  to  a  positive  intellectual  conviction,  but  is  simply 
the  neo'ative  state  of  doubt  or  unbelief.  And  evidence  is 
not  wanting  that  both  the  intellect  and  the  heart  recoil 
from  every  atheistic  conclusion.  For  the  necessities  of 
thought  and  the  demands  of  the  profoundest  forces  of  life 
continually  throw  men  back  on  some  religious  positions 
even  when  they  have  supposed  themselves  freed  from 
them.  When  they  have  pushed  God  out  from  one  door, 
a  god  is  found  to  have  entered  at  another.  They  have 
speculated  and  contended  concerning  "the  essence  of  the 
primal  existence  "  and  the  first  cause  of  the  universe,  but 
even  those  who  have  most  positively  rejected  belief  in  God 
as  the  Personal  Author  of  nature,  have  straightway  pro- 
ceeded to  make  a  god  of  Force,  or  of  the  Atom,  or  of  Law, 
transferring  to  it  both  creatorship  and  sovereignty.  Thus 
the  so-called  atheist  of  our  day  has  usually  only  shifted 
the  position  and  changed  the  form  of  the  idea,  and  often 
falls  back  into  a  deification  of  the  powers  or  attributes  of 
nature  and  some  worship  of  an  idealized  humanity  or  of 
the  universe.  So  persistent  is  the  conception  of  deity. 
Not  only  has  the  human  mind  shown  no  repugnance  to  it, 
but  has  developed  or  accepted  it  as  natural  and  normal. 
It  maintains  itself  in  all  ages  and  in  all  nations,  presenting 
one  of  the  most  universal  convictions  of  the  race. 

Now,  whatever  theory  we  may  adopt  as  to  the  origin  of 
this  conviction,  its  wonderful  prevalence  becomes  a  strong- 
presumption  of  its  truth.  If  held  to  be  due  to  a  primitive 
revelation,  the  existence  of  God  who  revealed  Himself  is 
at  once  acknowledged.  If  it  be  regarded  as  arising 
naturally  and  spontaneously  from  the  mind  itself,  under 


30  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

impressions  from  nature,  the  universality  and  ruling 
strength  of  the  belief  become  a  clear  and  strong  presump- 
tion of  its  truth.  For  a  conviction  that  springs  so  inevit- 
ably from  experience  and  the  action  of  reason  in  the 
presence  of  the  phenomena  of  the  world,  and  is  so  peren- 
nial in  vitality,  is  justly  viewed  as  founded  on  reality. 
That  an  idea  should  be  so  tiioroughly  normal  to  the  human 
mind  as  this  has  proved  to  be.  forcing  itself  into  recogni- 
tion everywhere  and  in  all  ages,  asserting  a  virtual  omni- 
presence in  the  thought  and  belief  of  the  race  under  all 
conditions  and  changes,  and  yet  be  wholly  false  and  ille- 
gitimate, a  universal  but  necessary  mistake,  is  against  all 
natural  and  reasonable  probability.  We  justly  see  some- 
thino-  more  than  a  dream  and  delusion  in  such  a  universal, 
free,  and  unconquerable  conviction.  Especially  so,  if  we 
add  to  this  impressive  prevalence  the  ever-felt  necessity  of 
it,  for  the  welfare  of  life  and  the  order  of  society.  While 
it  has  appeared  everywhere,  it  has  only  met  a  fundamental 
and  plain  need  of  the  race.  It  has  only  furnished  what  is 
known  to  be  required  for  man's  moral  nature  and  the 
restraint  of  wrong.  With  its  accompanying  convictions 
of  obligation  and  responsibility,  it  has  come  as  an  indispen- 
sable force  for  duty  and  good  cliaracter,  for  the  proper 
well-being  and  best  development  of  humanity.  All  this 
looks  like  the  signature  of  truth. 

2.  A  second  evidence  of  this  kind  is  the  religions  171- 
stinct  of  the  race.  This  is  properly  mentioned  separately 
here,  because  it  presents  another  fact  of  man's  constitu- 
tion. In  connection  with  the  idea  of  God,  so  universally 
found,  there  is  a  further  principle,  everywhere  showing 
itself  in  religious  feeling  and  acts  of  worship,  x\ppar- 
ently  even  deeper  than  that  idea,  are  the  feelings  of  de- 


PRESUMPTIVE     EVIDENCE.  31 

pcndeiice  and  need,  the  tendencies  to  reverence  and 
homage,  and  the  craving  for  some  fellowship  with  divine 
powers  above  man.  We  may  rightly  call  all  this  a  relig- 
ious instinct,  as  it  evidently  comes  out  of  the  very  frame- 
work and  set  of  the  mental  and  moral  sensibilities.  In 
heart,  as  well  as  in  intellect,  man's  nature  shows  an  organ- 
ization for  religion,  an  adaptation  and  impulse  toward  it 
so  decided  and  influential  as  to  reveal  itself  everywhere. 

Religious  sentiments  and  proclivities  have  been  found 
in  all  nations  and  tribes.  Worship  offered  to  a  Supreme 
Being,  or  some  divinity  supposed  to  control  the  welfare 
and  destiny  of  man,  has  been  coeval  and  coextensive  with 
the  race.  Every  people,  not  purely  monotheistic,  is  found 
to  have  a  mythology,  and  each  mythologic  system  has  been 
but  the  attempt  to  give  formal  expression  to  the  relations 
which  are  felt  to  connect  men  with  invisible  supernatural 
powers.  The  literature  of  every  land,  where  a  literature 
has  been  discovered  at  all,  reveals  the  coloring  of  the  re- 
ligious sentiments  ;  the  customs  and  habits  of  wholly  illit- 
erate tribes  are  usually  deeply  and  unmistakably  marked 
by  their  action.  However  degraded  the  savagery,  or  blind 
and  distorted  the  impulse,  the  instinct  has  been  there.  It 
changes  its  manifestations,  but  never  disappears.  Every- 
where there  have  been  temples,  or  oracles,  or  offerings,  or 
sacrifices,  prayers,  vows,  or  other  acts  of  worship. 

The  religious  principle  or  sentiment  in  man  has  been  as 
powerful  as  certain.  It  has  woven  itself  in  with  tlie  entire 
structure  of  human  society  and  life,  and  has  run  its  clear 
lines  through  every  system  of  thought  and  philosophy, 
from  the  rudest  to  the  most  elaborate  and  refined.  At  no 
point  has  human  nature  been  more  sensitive,  or  more  ready 
to  reveal   powers  of  intense  and   emphatic  action.      While 


32  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

usually  the  religious  instincts  and  ideas  have  been  the 
support  and  defence  of  prevalent  forms  of  government 
and  society,  they  have  often,  especially  when  either  assailed 
or  quickened  by  new  light,  swept  institutions  from  their 
foundations  and  revolutionized  life. 

One  of  the  surest  forms  in  which  this  religious  consti- 
tution is  revealed  is  in  the  soul's  conscious  cravings  for  a 
higher  fellowship  than  with  the  finite,  visible  beings 
around  it.  The  soul  carries  with  it  a  constant  sense  of 
dependence.  It  feels  a  need  of  support  and  guidance  by 
some  stronger  hand.  It  has  aspirations  that  look  to  and 
crave  communion  with  what  is  above  it.  It  is  restless, 
unless  it  can  rest  itself  in  the  bosom  of  some  all-embracing 
protection,  fellowship,  and  care.  The  human  heart  must 
have  a  God,  as  truly  as  must  the  mind  develop  the  idea  of 
one.  It  has  struggled  to  reach  His  favor  and  get  hold  of 
His  hand,  feeling  after  Him,  if  perchance  it  might  find 
Him,  through  sacrifices,  prayers,  and  vows,  in  protracted 
meditations  and  mystic  ceremonies.  So,  by  a  natural  ne- 
cessity, manifold  systems  and  forms  of  religion  have  been 
developed.  The  strong  words  of  Dr,  Day  well  sum  up 
this  truth  :  ''  The  dependent,  finite,  human  soul  craves  the 
absolute  and  the  infinite.  It  craves  a  sympathy  that  out- 
reaches  all  that  is  not  truly  independent  and  unlimited, 
and  will  not  be  satisfied  till  it  finds  that  which  is  adequate 
to  meet  not  only  the  limited  actualities,  but  the  infinite 
possibilities  of  its  need  and  its  condition,  and  is  high  up- 
lifted above  all  that  can  condition,  that  can  hamper  or  ex- 
tinguish. It  craves  communion  with  a  craving  which  no 
finite  soul  can  satisfy^  with  a  higher  and  a  higher,  even 
with  a  highest,  toward  which  it  may  ever  be  rising,  but 
which  it  can   never  reach.   ...   It  craves,  in  its  instinct- 


PRESUMPTIVE   EVIDENCE.  33 

ive  aspirations  for  truth  that  pant  for  more  than  they  ob- 
tain, an  object  that  is  witliout  exhaustion,  of  illimitable 
vastness  and  incalculable  richness.  It  craves,  in  the  felt 
darkness  about  it,  a  light  and  a  wisdom  that  is  beyond  all 
possibility  of  failing.  It  craves,  in  its  sense  of  weakness 
which  necessarily  attaches  to  it  as  dependent,  a  help  and 
supply  of  strength  that  can  be  relied  on  in  any  of  the 
infinite  possibilities  of  its  experience." 

If  it  be  said  that  there  are  persons  who  have  no  such 
consciousness  of  religious  wants,  it  is  enough  to  reply 
that  these  cases  are  manifestly  exceptional  and  abnormal, 
even  as  there  are  many  persons  who,  through  a  false  or 
defective  development,  fail  to  present  various  other  un- 
doubtedly natural  parts  of  full  manhood,  as,  e.g.^  con- 
science and  love  of  the  beautiful.  If  it  be  alleged  that 
antipathies  to  religion  also  appear  in  human  nature,  and 
that  many  men,  when  developed  under  the  large  culture 
of  science  and  philosophy,  hasten,  as  if  under  a  strong- 
aversion  to  it,  to  reject  all  belief  in  God  and  the  super- 
natural, and  exhibit  feelings  intensely  anti-religious,  the 
following  considerations  deserve  to  be  kept  in  mind: 
First,  it  may  be  freely  conceded  that  human  nature 
exhibits  some  feelings  and  impulses  at  war  with  the 
truths  and  life  of  religion.  It  is  not  claimed  that  it  has 
no  forces  that  run  counter  to  these  religious  instincts.  It 
is  even  too  true  that  there  are  discords  in  it.  Secondly, 
the  religious  aptitudes  manifestly  belong  to  its  deeper 
and  more  constitutive  elements,  and  so  are  justly  consid- 
ered as  original  and  truly  genuine.  The  antagonistic 
forces  seem  to  be  in  no  sense  necessary,  and  therefore 
primitively  and  truly  natural,  as  the  religious  instinct 
plainly  shows  itself  to  be.     And  thirdly,  even  when  the 


34  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

idea  of  God  is  theoretically  discarded  and  religion  re- 
jected, the  force  of  the  original  adaj^tation  and  affinity 
for  religion,  refusing  to  be  wiped  utterly  out,  is  wont  to 
reassert  itself  in  the  very  face  of  the  denial.  Conspicu- 
ous instances  illustrate  how  human  nature  throws  back 
the  deniers  of  religion  into  acknowledgment  of  religion. 
Auguste  Comte,  who  built  his  philosophic  theory  on 
atheism  and  a  denial  of  all  religious  verities,  in  the  end, 
led  by  his  own  emotional  nature  which  his  system  had 
defrauded,  appended  his  scheme  deifying  ideal  humanity 
and  establishing  a  system  of  worship  and  rites.  Though 
he  rejected  religion  in  the  beginning,  the  necessities  of 
worship  of  some  sort  forced  the  manufacture  of  a  new 
religion  at  the  last.  Materialism  and  materialistic  philos- 
ophies are  found  returning  upon  their  own  paths  in  this 
respect.  Unwilling  or  unable  to  discern  any  God  in  the 
universe  or  any  spiritual  existence  in  man,  not  believing 
in  any  future  life  or  any  supernatural  powers,  recognizing 
the  existence  of  only  force  and  matter  evolving  all  physi- 
cal and  mental  phenomena,  they  yet,  in  the  end,  not  only 
consent  to  the  fact  of  the  religious  necessities  of  human 
nature,  but  proceed  to  tell  how  it  may  still  worship  when 
God  is  denied  and  both  freedom  and  responsibility  are 
theoretically  destroyed.  Failing  by  their  theories  to 
eradicate  the  religiousness  that  lies  in  the  very  depth  of 
the  soul's  constitution,  they  invite  it  to  exercise  the  relig- 
ious sensibilities  in  reverence,  homage,  and  trust  in  na- 
ture, in  the  universe,  as  the  highest  form  of  power.  The 
idea  of  God  is  replaced  by  that  of  the  Cosmos.  "  We 
demand,"  say  Strauss,  Haeckel,  Oscar  Schmidt,  and  others, 
in  substance,  "  we  demand  the  same  piety  for  our  Cosmos 


PRESUMPTIVE    EVIDENCE.  35 

that  the  devout  of  old  demanded  for  his  God."  ^  Prof. 
Tyndall  was  therefore  right,  when,  in  his  famous  Belfast 
address,  though  believing  that  the  potency  of  all  things 
might  be  found  in  matter,  he  yet  conceded  that  man's 
religious  instincts  and  necessities  could  not  be  justly 
denied  or  overlooked. 

What  is  the  meaning  of  all  this?  To  what  do  these 
instincts  look  ?  Do  these  deep  cravings  reach  out  forever 
only  into  blank  vacancy  and  to  nothingness  ?  Are  they 
presenting  these  prayers,  this  gratitude,  this  confidence 
where  there  is  no  Being  at  all  to  hear  ?  Is  this  necessary 
worship,  clustering  around  this  necessary  idea  of  God, 
only  the  acting  out  of  a  necessary  dream  ?  Is  there 
really  no  Father  in  heaven  at  all,  whose  hand  these  needy 
children  are  seeking  to  find  and  believing  tliey  do  find  ? 
These  deep  and  abiding  instincts  must  imply  the  exist- 
ence of  the  Divine  Being,  unless  human  nature  be  funda- 
mentally false.  Tliat  it  is  thus  false,  it  is  utterly  unrea- 
sonable to  believe.  For  one  of  the  most  incontestable 
facts,  established  by  observation  and  inductive  science,  is 
that  every  well  defined  instinct,  wherever  found,  implies 
and  points  to  its  corresponding  reality.  Whatever  theory 
as  to  the  origin  of  things  men  may  adopt,  they  recognize 
the  fact  that  a  law  of  adjustment  and  correspondencv 
everywhere  prevails.  Nature  makes  no  halves,  leaves  no 
parts  standing  alone,  presents  no  monstrosities  of  struct- 
ure in  which  subjective  constitutional  cravings  and  ne- 
cessities are  left  without  external  complement  or  supply. 
The  eye  is  answered  by  the  light,  the  ear  by  the  atmos- 
phere, the  lungs  by  the  air,  the  appetite  by  food;  over 
against    the    intellect,  and  fitting  it,  are    the  objects   of 

1  Rudolph  Schmid's  Theories  of  Darwin,  p.  191. 


36  NATUKAL   THEOLOGY. 

knowledge;  the  sensibilities  find  their  subjects  ready  for 
them;  the  will  looks  out  on  a  real  field  of  voluntary 
action.  Passing  on  to  the  instincts,  the  certainty  of 
their  indications  and  directive  action  has  ever  been  one  of 
the  things  for  wonder  and  admiration.  As  far  as  scien- 
tifically examined,  they  are  not  misleading.  Whether 
they  teach  the  bee  to  construct  its  cell,  or  the  beaver  its 
house,  or  the  bird  its  nest,  whether  they  inform  the 
pigeon  of  the  time  and  way  of  its  migration,  or  direct  the 
fishes  to  the  distant  waters  to  deposit  their  eggs,  they  are 
all  followed  safely.  They  do  not  mock  or  point  to  noth- 
ing. Every  positive  normal  instinct  expresses  a  truth  and 
looks  to  a  reality  far  beyond  itself,  pointing  out  that 
reality  through  the  darkness  with  almost  unerring  ray. 
Not  more  truly  does  the  lake,  reflecting  stars  from  its 
deep  bosom,  certify  the  reality  of  the  starry  heavens 
above  it,  than  do  these  universal  instincts  assure  the 
objects  which  we  behold  mirrored  in  them.  To  look  upon 
the  deep  religious  human  instincts  alone  as  deceptive  and 
spurious  would  be  utterly  unreasonable  and  unscientific. 
They  therefore  form  a  clear  and  valid  presumption  for  the 
real  existence  of  the  Infinite  Supreme  Being  whom  they 
necessarily  imply.  "  It  would  be  irrational  in  the  last 
degree  to  lay  down  the  existence  of  such  a  need  and  such 
a  tendency,  and  yet  believe  that  the  need  corresponds  to 
nothing,  that  the  tendency  has  no  goal.  Religious  his- 
tory, by  bringing  clearly  into  light  the  universality,  the 
persistency,  and  the  prodigious  intensity  of  religion  in 
human  life,  is,  therefore,  to  my  mind,  one  unbroken 
attestation  of  God."  ^ 

3.    The  berdf/n  hifluence  of  belief  in  God  is  a  natural 

1  Reville :  Bampton  Lectures  on  The  Native  Religions  of  Mexico  and  Peru.  p.  6. 


PRESUMPTIVE   EVIDEKCE.  37 

sign  of  its  truth.  Thouoli  utility  and  truth  are  different 
conceptions,  and  utility  does  not  make  truth,  yet  it  often 
serves  to  prove  it  and  helps  to  find  it.  For,  to  a  degree 
that  has  made  the  fact  both  clear  and  impressive,  truth  is 
promotive  of  man's  welfare  and  happiness,  while  error 
misleads  and  blights.  Falsehood  kills  like  frost  every 
precious  thing  it  touches.  The  channels  of  error  can  bear 
no  refreshing  streams  for  virtue,  life,  order,  or  happiness. 
But  truth  is  light,  sunshine,  and  blessed  power  to  the 
world.  It  is  health  and  vigor  to  the  mind.  It  is  eleva- 
tion and  progress  to  society  and  every  human  interest. 
Now,  belief  in  the  existence  and  government  of  a  Supreme 
Being  has  the  clear  testimony  of  utility.  The  ideas  of 
God,  responsibility,  divine  favor  and  divine  displeasure, 
have  unquestionably  been  potent  for  justice,  veracity, 
honesty,  temperance,  purity,  and  order.  They  have  tended 
to  repress  wrong.  They  have  given  nerve  to  moral  char- 
acter. Neither  individuals  nor  communities  could  afford 
to  be  without  their  help.  Long  before  the  days  of  Plu- 
tarch, who  wrote:  "I  am  of  opinion  that  a  city  might 
sooner  be  built  without  any  ground  to  fix  it  on  than  a 
commonwealth  be  constituted  together  without  any  relig- 
ion or  idea  of  the  Gods,  or,  being  constituted,  be  pre- 
served," ^  moralists  had  been  feeling  that  neither  personal 
life  nor  society  could  bear  the  loss  of  this  faith.  In  all 
ages  since,  it  has  proved  to  be  the  only  truly  granite 
foundation  for  virtue  and  social  order.  And  this  strength 
of  benign  influence  has  always  been  in  direct  proportion 
to  the  clearness  and  fulness  of  the  theistic  faith.  Pre- 
vailingly, indeed,  the  idea  of  the  Supreme  Being  has  been 
so  overlaid  by  distorting  polytheisms,  and  His  relations  to 

1  Plutarch's  Moralia,  V,  380. 


38  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

the  world  and  man  have  been  so  shrouded  in  darkness 
and  error  as  to  turn  the  true  fruit  in  large  measure  into 
false.  Often  the  notion  of  God  has  been  so  dreadfully 
misconceived  as  to  pervert  religion  into  conflict  with  even 
morality,  and  make  it  a  wasting  power.  But  this  is  a 
result  that  attends  the  falsification  of  any  great  and 
potent  truth.  The  blight  becomes  proportionate  to  the 
greatness  of  the  truth  perverted.  But  whenever  the 
conception  of  God  has  been  clear  and  well  developed, 
discerning  Him  as  the  self-existent  Maker  and  Governor 
of  the  universe,  infinite  in  power,  wisdom,  and  goodness, 
and  especially  as  the  Father  of  all,  then  this  faith  quick- 
ens and  strengthens  all  the  best  forces  of  human  life  and 
purifies  and  elevates  all  its  joys.  Not  onl}^  does  it  carry 
virtue,  but  carries  it  with  a  richness  proportioned  to  the 
depth  and  fulness  of  its  conception  of  the  Divine  Being. 
The  best  and  loftiest  ethical  systems  the  world  has  ever 
known  are  found  under  the  light  of  the  clearest  and  most 
positive  theism.  Under  this  light  the  human  mind  shows 
its  healthiest  vigor,  the  conscience  its  clearest  affirmations 
and  its  most  regal  authority.  Under  it  manhood  grows  to 
its  noblest  forms  and  shows  its  finest  possibilities.  Under 
it  science  and  philosophy  are  achieving  their  grandest 
successes,  culture  is  bearing  its  richest  fruits,  and  nations 
are  growing  the  freest  and  strongest. 

The  relation  of  faith  in  God  to  the  nourishment  and 
vigor  of  our  moral  nature  deserves  to  be  specially  empha- 
sized. There  may,  indeed,  be  some  morality  without  re- 
ligion, as  the  sense  of  right  and  wrong  is,  to  some  degree 
at  least,  spontaneous  and  necessary.  Atheism  may  even 
construct  a  sort  of  ethical  system.  But  attempts  to 
explain   the  origin   of    the  world  and   man   on   atheistic 


PRESUMPTIVE   EVIDEN'CE.  30 

hypotheses  have  really  found  no  just  foundation  for  either 
freedom  and  responsibility  or  the  authority  of  conscience. 
The  effort  of  Herbert  Spencer,  after  having  only  removed 
the  idea  of  God  into  the  dark  realm  of  the  "unknow- 
able," has  become  conspicuous  chiefly  by  its  evident 
failure.  In  it  the  ideas  of  right  and  wrong  have  fallen 
away,  and  only  those  of  utility  and  pleasure  remain. 
While,  on  the  one  hand,  faith  in  an  almighty  Maker  and 
Ruler,  holy,  good,  and  righteous,  is  naturally  a  fountain 
of  health  and  strength  to  the  moral  sentiment  and  prin- 
ciples, it  is  unquestionable,  on  the  other  hand,  that 
atheistic  opinions  practically  tend  to  relax  the  moral  life 
of  both  men  and  communities.  They  cut  the  nerves  of 
conscience.  They  put  out  the  lights,  or  lower  them  to  an 
ineffectual  glimmer.  The  theoretical  atheists  of  a  com- 
munity are  never  its  moral  glory.  They  do  not  carry  its 
inspiring  or  uplifting  forces.  No  man  ever  gains  virtuous 
strength  and  purity  by  loss  ol  faith  in  God.  Almost 
everyone,  by  such  loss,  drops  down  into  inferior  char- 
acter. It  was  hardly  without  some  relation  of  cause  and 
effect  that  the  crimes  and  horrors  with  which  the  first 
French  Revolution  appalled  mankind  came  out  from  be- 
neath the  lifted  banner  of  atheism.  It  is  a  simple  fact 
that  at  the  present  time,  wherever  materialism  or  other 
speculative  theories  have  overthrown  belief  in  God,  de- 
moralization sets  in  like  a  fast  rot.  Anarchic  forces  are 
unchained.  It  is  by  no  accident  that  atheism  has  gotten 
the  further  name  of  nihilism  —  the  term  that  stands  for 
the  most  conscienceless  plans  and  frightful  crimes  that 
are  now  illustrating  the  capabilities  of  human  depravity. 
It  is  not  chance  that  finds  the  most  dangerous  of  the 
"dangerous  classes"  to  be  atheists.     It  must  be  admitted. 


40  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

indeed,  that  simple  belief  in  God  does  not  stay  all  wrongs, 
and  sometimes  atrocious  and  horrible  crimes  have  been 
committed  in  the  very  name  of  religion,  as  in  cruel  wars 
for  its  propagation  and  in  frequent  persecutions.  It  is 
proper  to  mention  this,  because  some  people  may  think  of 
it  not  simply  as  an  exception  to  the  good  influence  of 
theistic  belief,  which  it  possibly  is,  but  as  a  contradiction 
or  disproof  of  it,  which  it  plainly  is  not;  for  it  is  in  no 
sort  a  necessary  or  logical  result  of  the  belief.  But  it  is 
manifestly  a  violent  and  gross  perversion  of  its  true  and 
rightful  influence,  and  comes  from  the  bad  passions  of 
men  which  often  seize  and  use  in  unreasonable  and  violent 
way  the  holiest  truths.  It  is  grossly  absurd  to  credit  to 
any  truth  whatever  the  consequences  which  flow  from 
men's  violation  of  it.  And  this  incidental  result,  as  a 
perversion,  has  been  only  occasional,  while  the  normal 
working  influence  has  ever  been  the  benign,  quickening, 
uplifting,  fructifying  force  for  the  best,  strongest,  most 
unselfish  and  happy  life  of  which  the  world  knows.  And 
this  is  a  strong  presumption  of  its  truth.  It  is  hardly  a 
falsehood  that  bears  these  happy  fruits,  a  thorn  that  bears 
these  grapes. 

4.  All  the  facts,  phenomena,  and  appearances  of  the 
world  are  best  explained  and  harmonized  under  the  belief 
of  the  existence  of  God.  No  principle  of  scientific  pro- 
cedure is  more  fully  recognized  than  that  a  theory  is 
proved  true  by  its  thoroughly  interpreting  and  accounting 
for  all  the  phenomena  concerned.  When  a  supposition  or 
doctrine  works  badly  it  is  discredited  as  out  of  harmony 
with  the  nature  of  things.  If  it  explains  and  solves  all 
the  elements  involved,  it  gains  scientific  authority.  Thus 
a  conjecture  as  to  the  sun's  true  place  in  the  solar  system 


PRESUMPTIVE   EVIDENCE.  41 

passed  from  the  rank  of  a  supposition  to  that  of  science, 
in  heliocentric  astronomy.  So,  too,  a  hypothesis  of  New- 
ton's mind  has  become  the  scientific  law  of  gravitation. 
As  it  explains  all  the  phenomena,  it  is  accredited  as  true, 
despite  the  fact  that  gravitation  itself  is  inscrutable. 

The  doctrine  of  God  affords  the  most  direct  interpreta- 
tion of  all  the  phenomena  of  nature,  and  the  only  expla- 
nation yet  found  for  many  of  them.  Besides  such  facts 
as  have  been  already  mentioned,  viz.:  the  prevalent  concep- 
tion of  a  divine  existence,  the  religious  nature  of  man, 
and  the  beneficent  influence  of  theistic  belief,  there  are 
numberless  things  in  the  constitution  of  nature,  and  in 
human  experience,  which  are  most  readily  accounted  for,  as 
mankind  has  shown  a  strong  tendency  to  account  for  them, 
by  this  doctrine.  And  there  are  not  a  few  things  that  have 
hitherto  baffled  all  other  solution.  The  existence  of  matter 
and  its  forces  —  or  of  force  and  matter,  should  anyone 
prefer  this  way  of  statement —  in  marvellous  adaptation  to 
world-building  and  organization,  science  must,  apart  from 
this  doctrine,  simply  assume  without  explanation.  The 
origin  of  life,  the  origin  of  sensation,  the  genesis  of  con- 
sciousness, self-consciousness,  and  moral  self-determina- 
tion, are  all  inscrutable  before  every  attempt  of  science. 
With  its  most  searching  light  it  has  neither  found  nor 
shown  a  bridge  of  transition  from  lifelessness  to  life, 
from  mere  matter  to  sensation,  from  sensation  to  free  will 
and  the  appearance  of  self-determining  personality.'  It 
lacks  reasonable  answer  to  the  question  of  origin  on  all 
these  points,  and  unless  it  consents  to  let  them  remain  un- 

1  Du  Bois  Raymond,  in  the  front  rank  of  German  scientists,  gives  the  out- 
come of  scientific  search  after  the  origin  of  sensation  and  consciousness,  by 
saying  not  only  '■^ignoramus,'''  but  "ignorabimus."'  Lecture,  Leipzig,  on  TTie 
Limits  of  the  Knowledge  of  Nature. 


42  KATITRAL   THEOLOGY. 

accounted  for,  must  still  toil  on  in  the  baffling  inquiry.  It 
may  not  be  legitimate,  at  this  stage  of  the  discussion  and 
evidence,  to  claim,  what  the  facts  might  indeed  logically 
justify,  that  life,  consciousness,  personality,  and  a  moral 
nature  in  themselv^es  prove  the  existence  of  God.  But 
we  may  fairly  maintain  that  the  direct  solution  which  the 
doctrine  of  an  infinite,  living,  intelligent  Creator  furnishes 
to  these  otherwise  insoluble  problems,  is  an  almost  decisive 
presumption  in  its  favor.  Taken  in  connection  with  the 
unquestionable  fact  that  it  furnishes  a  direct  and  reason- 
able explanation  of  all  the  phenomena  of  the  universe  of 
mind  and  matter,  it  is  scientifically  accredited  as  truth. 
To  use  the  words  of  an  able  thinker  and  writer:  "It  is 
not  rash  to  say  that  it  is  beyond  all  comparison  stronger 
as  a  hypothesis  which  accounts  for  all  phenomena  under 
it  than  any  accepted  theory  in  the  science  of  the  physical 
universe  in  any  department  —  than  that  of  heat,  or  light, 
of  primeval  atoms,  or  of  gravity  itself."^  "The  simplest 
conception  which  explains  and  connects  the  phenomena," 
writes  Prof.  Henry,  of  the  Smithsonian  Institution,  "  is 
that  of  the  existence  of  one  spiritual  Being,  infinite  in  wis- 
dom, power,  in  all  divine  perfections,  which  exists  always 
and  everywhere." 

It  is  no  sufficient  answer  to  this  .strong  presumption 
for  theism  from  its  aifordino-  a  clear  solution  of  all  the 
phenomena  of  the  world,  to  bring  forward,  as  is  sometimes 
done,  the  difficulty  of  conceiving  of  a  self-existent  Being, 
a  Being  unoriginated  and  eternal.  This  is  probably  the 
chief  difficulty  sought  to  be  escaped  by  atheistic  theories. 
The  existence  of  God,  it  is  said,  needs  as  much  to  be  ac- 
counted for  as  the  universe  itself.     But  it  is  enough  to 

1  Prof.  H.  N.  Day;  Outlines  of  Oatological  Science,  p.  257. 


PRESUMPTIVE    EVIDENCE.  43 

point  out  that,  at  the  worst,  a  self-existent  God  is  no  more 
difficult  to  conceive  of  than  a  self-existent  universe.  The 
great  mystery  of  self-existence,  or  of  eternally  existent 
being,  is  not  escaped  by  denial  of  a  God.  It  must  be  ad- 
mitted someiohere.  For,  since  something  now  exists, 
something  must  always  have  existed  ;  for  it  is  impossible 
that  something  should  arise  out  of  nothing,  or  being 
should  spring  uncaused  out  of  non-being.  Present  exist- 
ence is  full  proof  that  somethuig  has  existed  from  eternity. 
This  is  conceded  by  all  —  atheists  as  well  as  theists.  The 
question,  therefore,  resolves  itself  into  this  :  Which  is  the 
more  reasonable  supposition  —  that  an  unintelligent  force 
or  matter  has  produced  this  universe  of  worlds,  with 
masses,  distances,  and  movements  in  exactest  harmony, 
filled  with  beneficent  adaptations,  marvellous  organisms, 
and  millions  on  millions  of  rational  and  moral  beings,  or 
that  one  intelligent,  self-existent,  almighty  Being  has 
planned  and  created  it  all  ?  Nothing  in  the  woi'ld  itself, 
with  its  ever  changing  forms  and  dependent  existences, 
suggests  the  qualities  of  necessity  and  self-existence  in  its 
own  nature.  To  substitute  a  self-existence  of  the  uni- 
verse, with  its  incalculable  multiplicity  of  parts  and  inter- 
dependencies,  and  countless  actual  human  personalities, 
for  the  self-existence  of  God,  multiplies  the  mystery  a 
thousand-fold.  The  self-existence  of  God,  therefore,  offers 
less  difficulty  than  the  self-existence  of  the  world.  It  is  a 
reduction  of  the  mystery  to  its  lowest  terms,  to  absolute 
unity  and  simplicity.  It  is  therefore  scientific,  and  chal- 
lenges acceptance  by  its  being  the  most  reasonable. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  ONTOLOGICAL  EVIDENCE. 

THIS  is  an  application  of  the  a  priori  method  of 
proof.  Ontology,  from  wv,  ovro^,  being,  and  f-oynq. 
discourse,  designates  the  study  which  investigates  the 
reality,  nature,  and  relations  of  being  as  such.  It  agrees 
with  the  term  "metaphysics,"  as  occupied  with  inquiries 
into  the  essence  of  things  and  the  validity  of  our  knowl- 
edge. As  a  term  for  a  mode  of  theistic  proof,  "  ontologi- 
cal"  is  used  almost  synonymously  with  the  term  ^^  a  pri- 
ori,'''' and  designates  that  kind  or  way  of  argument  which 
starts,  not  with  the  facts  of  sense-experience  or  observed 
phenomena  of  the  world,  but  with  ideas  which  are  held  as 
intuitive  and  necessary  in  the  mind's  own  insight,  and  the 
primary  and  universal  principles  and  laws  of  thought. 
Out  of  these  it  seeks  to  show  the  necessary  existence  of 
an  infinite,  absolute,  intelligent,  and  eternal  Being. 

While  marked  by  the  characteristic  of  always  proceed- 
ing from  the  internal  idea  to  the  necessary  existence  of 
God,  this  a  priori  or  ontological  proof  is  found  in  a  great 
variety  of  forms.  It  belongs  chiefly  to  modern  times, 
and  has  been  shaped  into  many  different  and  distinct 
arguments.  We  do  not  lay  great  stress  upon  it  as  a  sep- 
arate and  independent  proof,  or  as  a  form  of  demonstra- 
tion, viewed  in  its  own  terms  alone.  Though  sometimes 
claimed  to  be  the  proof,  complete  and  sufficient  in  itself, 
we  are  compelled  to  regard  it,  when  taken  alone  in  any 

44 


THE    ONTOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  45 

and  all  of  the  forms  in  which  it  has  been  constructed,  as 
one  of  the  least  satisfactory  and  serviceable  of  the  theis- 
tic  proofs.  Apart  from  serious  defects  usually  found  in 
it,  it  is  too  metaphysical  to  carry  strong  conviction. 
Whatever  force  it  may  have  to  some  minds,  highly  disci- 
plined in  abstract  thought,  it  is  necessarily  almost,  if  not 
wholly,  useless  with  the  masses  of  men.  They  do  not, 
and  cannot,  comprehend  its  abstract  terms,  nor  see  or  feel 
the  force  of  the  subtle  logic  that  links,  or  seems  to  link, 
these  terms  to  each  other  and  to  the  conclusion.  But 
while  as  a  distinct  and  independent  argument,  it  is  of  less 
value,  we  think,  than  is  often  claimed  for  it,  it  is  not  to 
be  set  aside  or  held  as  of  no  account.  For  in  the  neces- 
sary judgments  and  first  principles  of  the  mind,  which  it 
brings  to  view,  it  unquestionably  furnishes  some  initial  as 
well  as  completing  elements  needed  for  the  a  posteriori  or 
phvsico-theological  evidences.  In  the  intuitive  percep- 
tions of  the  reason,  whose  ideas  and  implications  it  seeks 
to  trace  under  the  laws  of  logical  thought,  it  supplies  the 
judgments  which  crown  and  confirm  all  the  great  proofs. 
It  will  be  enough,  at  this  point  —  and  probably  the  best 
way  to  explain  it  —  to  place  before  the  reader  the  sub- 
stance of  some  of  the  chief  forms  in  wdiich  it  has  been 
presented. 

1.  The  germs  of  it  appear  in  Plato.  His  view  can  be 
understood  only  in  connection  with  his  theory  of  "  ideas." 
The  universe,  he  taught,  includes  more  than  the  sensible 
world.  We  find  idecis  also  in  it.  These  ideas  are  the 
archetypal  realities,  original  and  permanent,  while  all  vis- 
ible and  material  things  are  only  the  temporary  and  fleet- 
ing forms  in  which  they  come  into  passing  manifestation. 
It  is  only  by  apprehension  of  these  "ideas"  that  we  know 


46  I^ATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

the  true  realities  reflected  in  the  phenomena  of  the  world. 
They  do  not  originate  in  material  things,  but  are  before 
them,  and  belong  to  mind.  Yet  they  are  not  created  by 
our  minds,  which  merely  apprehend  and  receive  them. 
They  come  to  us.  They  must,  therefore,  belong  to  a 
higher  Mind,  and  subsist  in  primal  and  permanent  reality 
in  the  Infinite  Reason  whose  thoughts  are  reflected  in 
nature.  The  idea  of  a  Supreme  Mind  is  in  our  minds 
only  because  of  the  real  existence  of  the  Being  it  repre- 
sents, and  becomes  a  direct  proof  of  such  Being.'  Plato, 
it  must  be  remembered,  did  not  definitely  formulate  an 
argument  in  this  way,  but  his  philosophy  is  found  to  con- 
tain the  underlying  principles  which  naturally  come  to- 
gether in  such  argument,  and  which  started  and  guided 
subsequent  thinkers.  They  appear  in  Augustine  and 
among  theologians  generally  since. 

2.  Afiselm,  archbishop  of  Canterbury,  1093-1109,  with 
whom  the  ontological  argument  properly  begins,  rested  it 
upon  the  idea  of  a  most  perfect  Being.  It  was,  in  sub- 
stance: ''The  human  mind  possesses  the  idea  of  the  most 
perfect  Being  conceivable.  But  such  a  Being  is  necessa- 
rily/ existent;  because  a  being  whose  existence  is  contin- 
gent, who  may  or  may  not  exist,  is  not  the  most  perfect 
being  of  which  we  can  conceive.  Being  can  be  conceived 
to  exist  in  reality  also,  and  this  is  something  greater. 
Hence,  the  most  perfect  must  exist  not  simply  in  the  in- 
tellect, but  in  the  sphere  of  objective  reality.  God, 
therefore,  is  not  simply  conceived  by  us;  He  really 
exists."' 

1  See  Fleming's  Mamial  of  Moral  Science,  p.  323.  Cocker's  Christianity  and 
Greek  Philosophy,  pp.  369-379. 

2  Proslogitim,  Chaps,  II,  III.    Translated  in  Bibliotheca  Sacra,  July,  1851. 


THE   ONTOLOGICAL   EVIDENCE.  47 

3.  Descartes,  who  uses  several  a  posterio?'i  argu- 
ments, gives  also  an  ontological  proof  which  has  been 
condensed  as  follows:  "On  analyzing  the  idea  we  have  of 
God  as  the  most  real  Being,  containing  every  perfection, 
I  find  that  €xiste7ice  must  be  comprised  among  these  per- 
fections, otherwise  the  idea  could  be  enlarged  by  adding 
this  quality,  which  is  absurd.  In  other  ideas  existence  is 
not  such  a  necessary  ingredient,  because  they  are  not  con- 
sidered as  unique  and  absolutely  perfect.  But  in  this 
existence  must  be  comprised.  Hence  the  very  idea  of 
God,  rightly  understood,  includes  in  it  necessary  exist- 
ence, and  the  existence  of  the  Deity  is  proved  from  the 
very  fact  that  we  possess  a  notion  of  Him."^ 

4.  Bishop  Butler  presents  the  ontological  proof  thus: 
"We  find  within  ourselves  the  idea  of  infinity,  i.e.,  im- 
mensity and  eternity,  impossible,  even  in  imagination,  to 
be  removed  out  of  being.  We  seem  to  discern  intui- 
tively that  there  must  and  cannot  but  be  somewhat  exter- 
nal to  ourselves,  answering  this  idea,  or  the  archetype  of 
it.  And  hence  (for  this  abstract,  as  much  as  any  other, 
implies  a  concrete)  we  conclude  that  there  is,  and  cannot 
but  be,  an  infinite  and  immense  eternal  Being  existing, 
prior  to  all  design  contributing  to  His  existence,  and 
exclusive  of    it."  ' 

5.  The  statement  of  tlie  reasoning  given  by  Cousin, 
is  a  fair  example  :  "  The  idea  of  God,"  says  he,  "  is  a 
primitive  idea;  but  whence  does  this  idea  come  to  you? 
Is  it  a  creation  of  your  imagination,  an  illusion,  a  chimera  ? 
You  can  imagine  a  gorgon,  a  centaur,  to  exist,  and  you 
can  imagine  them  not  to  exist  ;  but  is  it  in  your  power, 

1  Blackwood's  PhilosophicaL  Classics,  "Descartes,"'  by  Prof.  J.  P.  Maliaffy, 
p.  153. 

2  Analogy,  Part  I,  Chap.  VI. 


48  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

the  finite  and  imperfect  being  given,  to  conceive  or  not 
to  conceive  the  infinite  and  the  perfect  ?  No,  the  one 
being  given,  the  other  is  necessary.  It  is  not,  then,  a  chi- 
mera ;  it  is  a  necessary  product  of  your  reason  ;  therefore 
it  is  a  legitimate  product.  Being  a  legitimate  product,  it 
must  point  to  a  reality.  Else  you  make  your  reason  dis- 
honest and  false.  .  .  .  You  are  a  finite  being,  and  you 
have  the  necessary  idea  of  an  infinite  being.  But  how 
could  a  finite  and  imperfect  being  have  the  idea  of  an  in- 
finite and  perfect  being,  and  have  it  necessarily,  if  this 
being  did  not  exist?  .  .  .  The  single  fact  of  the  concep- 
tion of  God  by  reason,  the  idea,  alone,  of  God,  implies 
the  certainty  and  the  necessity  of  the  existence  of  God."  ^ 

6.  We  omit  account  of  the  different  forms  given  to  the 
argument  by  Leibnitz,  Dr.  Samuel  Clarke,  Cudworth,  Dr. 
Richard  Fiddes,  Rev.  Colin  Campbell,  Mr.  Wollaston, 
Moses  Lowman,  Dean  Hamilton,  Chevalier  Ramsey,  Mr. 
W.  H.  Gillespie,  and  others.  Of  that  of  Mr.  Gillespie, 
entitled  The  Necessary  Existence  of  God^  Sir  William 
Hamilton  says  :  "  I  consider  it  among  the  very  best  speci- 
mens of  speculative  philosophy  which  this  country  has 
latterly  exhibited."  But  it  is  too  elaborate  to  be  condensed 
for  insertion  here. 

7.  It  only  remains,  now,  to  indicate,  if  possible,  the 
right  import  and  real  force  of  the  ontological  proof  as  it 
has  been  thus  successively  developed,  and  stands  accred- 
ited in  present  thought.  This  involves  the  following 
points  : 

First,  in  most  of  the  forms  in  which  it  usually  appears, 
notably  the  older  forms,  such  as  Anselm's,  Descartes',  and 
others  shaped  in  their  method,  it  certainly  failed  to  be  a 

1  Hist.  Mod.  Philos.  Vol.  II,  p.  420  (Appleton,  1852). 


THE    ONTOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  49 

demonstration.  It  is  seriously  faulty  and  inconclusive. 
It  confounds  conceptual  existence,  and  existence  in  re. 
In  the  curious  and  delusive  legerdemain  of  thought  and 
word  involved  in  it,  the  reasoning  makes  it  seem  as  if  the 
interval  between  subjective  idea  and  real  being  had  been 
successfully  crossed,  and  that,  at  least  in  this  case,  what  is 
ideal  in  the  mind  must  be  real  beyond  the  mind.  But  this 
is  an  illusion,  under  the  shadow  of  the  moving  and  chang- 
ing phrases.  It  fails  to  show  that  the  simple  fact  of  our 
conceiving  of  a  being,  whether  contingent  or  necessary 
being,  imperfect  or  perfect,  is  positive  proof  of  the  ob- 
jective existence  of  such  being.  Our  conceiving  of  a  being 
is  one  thing,  the  real  existence  of  that  being  is  quite  an- 
other. No  matter  if  the  conception  of  God  is  unique  and 
peculiar,  as  is  claimed,  and,  unlike  the  conception  of  con- 
tingent beings,  involves  necessity  of  existence,  it  is  still 
only  a  conception.  The  argument  puts  the  simple  con- 
ception  of  a  "  necessary  existence  "  as  equivalent  to  the 
proof  of  the  necessity  of  that  existence.  The  manipula- 
tion, however,  fails  to  make  sure  the  objective  reality  by 
a  mere  contingent  thought  within  us. 

Secondly,  although  defective,  this  evidence,  even  in 
its  Anselmic  and  Cartesian  form,  is  by  no  means  valueless. 
The  ideas  with  whose  presence  in  the  mind  it  deals,  and 
whose  implications  it  seeks  to  solve,  form  the  basis  of 
reasoning  of  great  theistic  force.  It  supplies  a  leading 
element  for  a  proof  in  calling  attention  to  the  point  that 
the  true  idea  of  God  is  that  of  a  Being  "  necessarily  exist- 
ent." To  think  Him  truly,  at  all,  we  must  think  Him  as 
existing.  Existence  is  a  necessary  element  in  the  ideci  of 
God.  In  this  fundamental  principle  there  is  firm  ground  ; 
God  is  not  thought  truly  unless  He  is  thought  as  a  neces- 
4 


50  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

sarily  existent  being.  But  the  lack  here  appears.  For 
though  he  cannot  be  truly  thought  as  a  contingent  Being, 
the  question  may  still  be  raised,  whether  it  is  necessary  to 
think  the  thought  of  God  at  all.  The  thought  itself  may 
possibly  be  contingent,  a  mere  product  of  our  free  ability  to 
make  it  or  not.  The  argument  is  fatally  defective  unless 
it  can  be  shown  that  this  idea  is  a  necessary  one. 

Thirdly,  this  question,  whether  the  forming  of  the 
idea  of  God  is  contingent  or  necessary,  upon  which  every- 
thing now  depends,  is  answered  by  abundant  evidence 
showing  that  it  is  necessary.  It  is  not  an  arbitrary  product, 
like  the  fictions  which  the  imagination  has  power  to  make 
or  not,  at  pleasure,  but  it  is  inevitable  in  the  normal  action 
of  the  reason,  and  indispensable  to  every  rational  consid- 
eration of  things.  Kant  and  others  have  thoroughly  es- 
tablished the  truth  that  this  idea  necessarily  arises  in  the 
mind  when  developed  and  exercised  in  contact  with  the 
phenomena  of  the  world  and  the  experiences  of  life. 
From  our  knowledge  of  extended  material  objects,  and 
of  occurring  events,  and  states  of  consciousness,  the  ideas 
of  Space  and  Time  are  necessarily  developed.  In  some- 
what similar  way,  in  presence  of  the  facts  of  the  universe 
and  our  mental  experiences,  through  our  knowledge  of 
limited,  dependent,  and  begun  existences,  the  ideas  of 
Cause,  Infinity,  Independence,  and  Self-existence  are  inev- 
itably evoked.  The  infinite  and  the  absolute  are  required 
as  correlates  of  the  finite  and  contingent,'  and  seen  to  be 
as  real  as  are  the  contingent  realities  of  actual  experience 
which  call  for  them.  It  does  not  matter  that  these  ideas  are 
conditioned  in  the  elements  of  experience.  So  are  the 
necessary  notions  of  Time,  Space,  and  Cause.     Yet  these 

1  President  Porter's  Human  Intellect,  p.  659. 


THE    ONTOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  51 

notions  are  so  fundamental  and  necessary  that  thinking  is 
impossible  without  them.  Even  the  contingent,  but  act- 
ual, realities  of  the  world  cannot  be  thought  at  all  without 
involving  them.  Nor  does  it  matter  that  no  one  of  these 
ideas  is  in  itself  the  full  concept  or  idea  of  God.  For  in 
their  union  and  implications  they  necessarily  amount  to 
that  idea,  as  well  as  evoke  it.  With  these  necessary 
truths  of  Cause,  the  Infinite,  the  Absolute,  or  the  Inde- 
pendent, or  Self-existent,  the  idea  of  God  as  the  infinite 
and  self-existent  Being  spontaneously  and  by  inexorable 
logic,  completes  itself.  It  has  thus  the  validity  of  a  neces- 
sary thought.  The  theistic  conclusion  is,  therefore,  well 
assured,  under  the  principle  that  what  the  human  mind 
must  necessarily  think,  and  must  think  as  necessarily  ex- 
isfl/iy,  cannot  be  doubted.  We  add  the  argument  as  con- 
densed and  shaped  by  Dr.  Dorner: 

"  1.  When  the  highest  essence  is  thought,  it  is  thought 
as  unconditioned  and  independent  of  anything  else;  inde- 
pendent, also,  of  our  subjective  thought,  but  as  uncondi- 
tioned or  absolute,  self-existent.  Thus  the  only  choice  lies 
between  leaving  the  idea  of  God  unthought,  or  thinking  it, 
when  thought,  absolute  and  self-existing. 

"  2.  But  this  double  possibility  does  not  hold,  and  thus 
the  hypothetical  alternative  is  rather  established.  It  is 
not  optional,  but  necessary  to  think  an  Absolute,  which, 
in  order  to  be  thought,  is  to  be  thought  as  existent.  It  is 
necessary,  that  is  to  say,  for  him  who  wishes  to  think 
rationally,  and  whose  thought  is  thought  which  would  be- 
come knowledge.  ...  It  is  not  open  to  the  rational 
thinker  to  avow  an  Absolute  —  he  nmst  avow  it."  * 

I  System  of  Christian  Doctrine,  Vol.  I,  p.  22G  (,T.  &  T.  Clark). 


52  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

The  points  in  the  argument  may,  therefore,  be  summed 
up  thus: 

First,  the  rational  idea  of  being  is  not  a  mere  abstrac- 
tion, an  optional  product  of  our  own  faculties.  We  know 
real  being  by  intuition. 

Secondly,  we  necessarily  have  an  idea  of  real  being. 

Thirdly,  but  contingent  and  dependent  being  does  not 
fill  out  the  idea  of  real  being,  and  we  are  compelled  to 
think  of  idtiniate  being,  involving  the  ideas  of  self-exist- 
ence, independence,  and  eternit^^  Thus  by  a  single  anal- 
ysis of  our  necessary  idea  and  knowledge  of  real  being, 
we  find  it  to  include  an  Absolute  or  Self-existent  Being. 
The  ontological  argument  is  simply  an  analysis  of  the  first 
great  fact  of  our  consciousness — the  consciousness  of 
existence.  If  we  believe  in  existence  at  all,  as  we  must, 
we  must  believe  in  an  Eternal  Existence,  Absolute  Exist- 
ence. In  so  far  as  this  Absolute  Existence  is  necessarily 
identical  with  God,  the  evidence  is  conclusive. 

Fourthly,  the  only  way  of  evading  the  force  of  this 
evidence  as  now  fully  constructed  under  the  philosophy 
of  necessary  truths,  is  by  undermining,  if  possible,  the 
validity  of  these  necessary  ideas.  This  is  attempted. 
Kant  himself  prepared  the  way  for  this.  Though  he 
showed  so  clearly  the  necessity  of  the  notions  of  Time, 
Space,  Cause,  God,  he  yet  questioned  whether  they  were 
anything  more  than  forms  of  thought,  necessary  and 
regulative  indeed  for  us,  but  not  certainly  pointing  to 
objective  realities.  Though  universal  and  inevitable,  they 
are  viewed  as  purely  subjective,  only  forms  of  sensible 
consciousness,  with  no  certain  validity  for  "things  in 
themselves,"  or  real  being.  In  this  doubt  as  to  the  relia- 
bility of  our  necessary  knowledge,  or  its  validity  for  the 


THE   ONTOLOCtICAL   EVIDENCE.  53 

real  world,  Kant  has  been  followed  by  many.  It  underlies 
and  marks  the  whole  philosophy  of  agnosticism,  if  indeed 
agnosticism  can  have  a  philosophy.  It  is  not  in  place 
here  to  repeat  the  many  all-sufficient  answers  to  this  neg- 
ative part  of  the  Kantian  doctrine.  It  is  purely  dogmatic, 
and  not  required  by  anything  demonstrated  in  the  positive 
nature  of  the  necessary  rational  perceptions.  It  is  in 
utter  contradiction  to  the  whole  science  of  knowledge.^ 

J^iff/ili/,  it  is  thus  apparent  that  whether  the  onto- 
logical  evidence  be  accepted  as  a  demonstration  or  not,  it 
is  of  ver}'  great  legitimate  force.  For  the  only  alternative 
to  admitting  it  is  to  discredit  the  a  2^riori  judgments  and 
trustworthiness  of  reason.  What  more  can  be  asked  for, 
in  a  proof,  than  that  it  should  present  a  logical  conclusion 
which  cannot  be  set  aside  without  assuming  that  the 
human  mind  in  its  ultimate  principles  is  self-contradictory 
and  deceptive?  Probably  the  words  of  Prof.  Flint  are  not 
too  strong  to  sum  up  the  results  from  this  argument: 
"This,  it  may  be  objected,  is  not  equivalent  to  a  proof  of 
the  existence  of  an  infinite  and  eternal  Being.  It  leads 
merely  to  the  alternative,  either  that  infinite  and  eternal 
Being  exists,  or  that  the  consciousness  and  reason  of  man 
cannot  be  trusted.  The  absolute  skeptic  will  rejoice  to 
have  this  alternative  offered  to  him;  that  the  human  mind 
is  essentially  untrustworthy  is  precisely  what  he  maintains, 
I  answer  that  I  admit  the  arguments  in  question  do  not 
amount  to  a  direct  proof,  but  they  constitute  a  reductio 
ad  ahsurdu.ni,  which  is  just  as  good,  and  that  if  they  do 
not  exclude  absolute  skepticism,  it  is  merely  because 
absolute  skepticism  is  willing  to  accept  what  is  absurd. 
...    If  though  I  am  constrained  to  conclude  that  there  is 

1  See  Prof.  G.  S.  Morris'  Kant's  Gritique  of  Pure  Reason,  pp.  56-79. 


54  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

an  infinite  and  eternal  Being,  I  may  reject  the  conclusion 
on  the  supposition  that  reason  is  untrustworthy,  I  am 
clearly  bound, 'in  self-consistency,  to  set  aside  the  testi- 
mony of  my  senses  also  by  the  assumption  that  they  are 
habitually  delusive.  When  any  view  or  theory  is  shown 
to  involve  absolute  skepticism,  it  is  sufficiently  refuted; 
for  absolute  skepticism  effaces  the  distinction  between 
reason  and  unreason,  and  practically  prefers  unreason  to 


It  is  proper,  at  this  place,  to  exclude  and  disown  some 
forms  of  alleged  proof  sometimes  put  forward  as  a  iwiori 
or  closely  allied  to  it.  AVhatever  evidence  may  lie  in 
germ  or  by  implication  in  the  facts  they  present,  they 
caruiot  be  accepted  when  offered  as  complete  proofs.  It 
is  difficult  to  understand  how  they  should  ever  be  given  as 
such.  Probably  those  who  exalt  them  most  would  never 
have  brought  them  forward  had  they  not  first  allowed 
bewildering  speculative  difficulties  to  break  their  hold  of 
the  real  and  best  theistic  evidences.  In  their  doubt  of 
the  true,  they  have  clutched  at  the  false. 

The  first  is  the  claim  that  the  soul  is  immediately  con- 
scious of  God.  German  writers  have  been  fond  of  this 
representation.  But  to  assert  such  a  direct  "God-con- 
sciousness" (Gottes-hevmsstsehi)  is  either  to  use  the  term 
"consciousness"  with  a  strange  and  misleading  meaning, 
or  to  declare  as  a  fact  wliat  is  without  evidence  and  in- 
capable of  proof.  Psychology  shows  us,  indeed,  that  the 
consciousness  may  include  objective  realities,  in  certain 
ways  and  to  some  degree.     Some  non-ego  is  a  co-agent 

1  Theism,  Baird  Lectures,  1876,  2d  Ed.,  pp.  287,  288, 


THE    ONTOLOGTCAL    EVIDENCE.  55 

in  giving  existence  to  every  mental    state.      But   this   is 
through   the   sense-perceptions.      Through    these  we   may 
say  we  are  conscious  of  external  objects.      For  in  the  act 
of    perception  our  consciousness   properly  includes   three 
objects,  viz.:  the  mental  act  or  state,  the  ego  acting,  and 
the  outer  object  which  determines  the  act.     We  may,  in  a 
sense,  therefore,  speak  of  being  conscious  of  the  material 
world  about  us  and  of  our  fellow-men.      But  this  knowl- 
edge of  external  objects  is  more  properly  credited  to  sense- 
perception  consciously  exercised.      Moreover,  with  respect 
to  knowing  God,  this  only  perceptive  faculty  for  external 
or  non-egoistic  objects  falls  utterly  short;  for  no  one  will 
claim  that  God  is  an  object  of  sense-perception.      If,  how- 
ever, it  should  be  said  that  we  are  directly  conscious  of 
the  supersensible  realities  of  time,   cause,  power,  etc.,  it 
is  enough  to  reply  that  we  are  conscious  of  them  simply 
as  time,   cause,  and  power,  and  that  the  idea  arjd  proof 
of  God  are  developed  from  these,  even  in  the  ontological 
way,  only  by  a  more  or  less  extended  logical  process.    We 
know  of  no  mode  in  which  the  consciousness  can  directly 
inform  us  of  more  than  what  is  wholly  subjective,  except 
through  the  action  of  the  sense-perceptions  and  the  pro- 
cesses    of    thought.      Writers    who     resolve    the    theistic 
proof  into  an  immediate  consciousness  of  God  are  dealing 
in  a  mysticism  that  disregards  clear  thinking,  and  avoids 
the  very  explanation  needed  —  how  a  knowledge  of  God  is 
given  to  consciousness.      Of  course,  when  we  once  know 
God,  through  any  mode  by  which  our  intellect  may  appre- 
hend  His  existence,  we  are  then   conscious  of    knowing 
Him.     This,  however,  is  a  direct  co?iscious7iess  only  of  our 
own  intellectual  state. 

The  second  is  the  assertion  of  an  immediate  intuition 


Ob  N^ATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

of  God.  However  evident  the  divine  existence  may  be- 
come under  proper  showing,  it  is  not  self-evident.  It  is 
not  a  truth  seen  to  be  clear  in  the  simple  terms  of  its 
statement.  Even  the  ontological  argument  does  not  claim 
that  it  is  so.  Else  no  argument  would  be  used  —  none 
would  be  needed.  If  men  stood  face  to  face  with  God, 
perceiving  Him  directly  in  immediate  vision,  the  whole 
history  of  this  effort  to  establish  the  divine  existence  to 
the  reason  would  be  inexplicable.  There  are,  indeed, 
various  a  priori  elements  involved  in  the  apprehension  of 
God,  such  as  the  intuitions  of  Time,  Space,  Causality, 
Infinity,  Self-existence;  but  these  alone,  and  simply  as 
intuitions,  are  neither  the  concept  of  God  nor  the  exist- 
ence of  God.  They  are  simply  the  materials  out  of  which, 
in  connection  with  our  knowledge  of  the  facts  of  external 
nature,  the  judgments  of  the  reason  may  show  the  exist- 
ence of  God  to  be  necessary.  A  mixture  of  both  intu- 
itional and  experiential  elements  is  involved.  The  very 
idea  of  God  is  built  up  cumulatively,  and  the  affirmation, 
"God  exists,"  stands  only  as  the  authorized  conclusion 
from  the  premises. 

A  thi7'd  notion  to  be  thrown  out  is  that  man  has  an 
iinmediate  feeling  of  God.  Though  the  absurdity  of  this 
notion  makes  it  unworthy  of  notice,  the  frequent  repeti- 
tion of  it  makes  a  notice  necessary.  Psychology  makes 
no  truth  plainer  than  that  feeling  or  emotion,  i.e.,  the 
action  of  the  mental  sensibilities,  depends  and  waits  on 
knowing,  and  that  a  man  feels,  or  can  feel,  only  in  so  far 
as  he  perceives  or  knows  something  that  excites  feeling. 
Simple  feeling,  without  knowing,  is  a  purely  imaginary 
and  really  impossible  experience.  To  put  it  in  front  as  a 
direct  apprehension  of  God  only  illustrates  the  nonsense 


THE    ONTOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  57 

which  good  men  sometimes  substitute  for  legitimate  evi- 
dence. 

With  equal  emphasis  we  must  reject  another  form  of 
representation,  that  the  divine  existence  is  wholly  a 
matter  of  faith,  faith  as  distinguished  from  knowledge 
and  instead  of  it.  Led  by  false  metaphysics,  some  writers 
have  conceded  that  God  cannot  be  koiovm  by  the  finite 
mind.  Some  of  them  yet  claim  that  we  must  believe  in 
Him.  Holding  that  His  existence  lies  wholly  beyond  the 
reach  of  our  knowledge,  that  we  can  know  neither  that 
He  is  nor  lohat  He  is,  they  assert  that  we  can  and  ought 
to  apprehend  Him  by  faith.  Though  this  view  is  en- 
dorsed by  great  names,  it  is,  so  far  as  Natural  Theology  is 
concerned,  utterly  misleading.  For  unless  the  word  is 
used  in  a  strangely  private  and  inapplicable  sense,  the 
claim  entirely  misconceives  the  true  relation  between 
knowledge  and  faith.  A  mere  belief,  without  a  reason  or 
knowledge  to  justify  it,  is  arbitrary,  and  rests  on  nothing. 
Faith  must  always  rest  on  or  in  knowledge.  It  demands 
some  evidence  to  justify  it.  This  evidence  must  precede, 
to  beget  faith.  Belief  dies  out  if  not  supported  and 
justified  by  reason.  If  it  rests  only  on  and  in  itself,  if  it 
has  no  warrant  but  the  very  act  of  believing,  and  is  not 
implied  by  real  knowledge,  it  is  irrational  and  without 
authority.  In  the  sphere  of  Natural  Theology,  therefore, 
where  by  definition  we  are  not  believing  in  the  divine 
existence  on  the  testimony  of  revelation,  mere  faith  can 
furnish  no  just  ground  for  the  theistic  conclusion.' 

1  This  point  is  of  sufficient  moment  to  call  for  the  bottom  truth  in  the  case. 
It  is  sometimes  said  that  all  knoioledge  rests  on  belief.  This  is  so  only  in  a 
secondary  sense.  The  real  truth  is  only  that  faith  attends  and  blends  with  all 
our  knowledge.  For  when  we  are  pointed  to  the  fact  that  when  even  in  the  act 
of  thinking  we  know  our  own  existence,  or  in  sense-perception  know  external 


58  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

Into  this  baseless  position  all  agnostic  theories  seek  to 
put  the  great  truth  of  theism.  In  placing  it  wholly  be- 
yond the  sphere  of  the  knowable  they  allow  it  to  stand,  if 
it  is  to  stand  at  all,  in  the  confidence  of  men  only  through 
an  inexplicable  and  arbitrary  act  of  faith  as  a  necessity  of 
the  feelings.  But  there  is  no  need  of  consenting  to  this 
non-rational  character  of  the  basis  of  theism.  There  is 
no  wisdom  in  doing  so.  The  true  vindication  of  theism  is 
not  reached  by  such  compromising  consent  to  the  demands 
of  an  untenable  and  spurious  philosophy,  but  by  showing 
that  the  faith  in  this  great  truth  is  a  faith  justly  evoked 
by  knowledge,  and  authorized  by  invincible  intellectual 
data. 

objects,  or  in  memory  know  past  experiences,  we  cannot  prove  the  trnths  in- 
volved, but  must  rest  on  faith  in  our  faculties,  and  depend  for  certitude  on  their 
trustworthiness,  it  must  still  be  clearly  observed  that  faith  arises  only  in  our 
knowing,  and  attends  it.  t'onscionsness,  in  which  we  know  self  as  existing  and 
thiuKing,  is,  psychologically,  a  knowing  faculty.  When  we  think,  we  "  know" 
that  we  think,  when  we  remember,  we  "know''  that  we  remember.  The  know- 
ing is  the  ultimate  point,  the  last  discernible  in  the  analysis  of  the  mind's 
action.  Faith  does  not  dispense  with  knowledge,  but  rests  on  it,  as  it  arises 
out  of  it.  This  faith  in  our  knowledge  is  a  very  different  thing  from  the  so- 
called  faith  which  it  is  proposed  to  substitute  for  knowledge,  where,  it  is  said, 
knowledge  is  impossible. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE   COSMOLOGICAL   EVIDENCE. 

THE  special  evidence  designated  by  this  term  is 
drawn  from  a  consideration  of  the  world  in  the  par- 
ticular aspects  of  contingency,  finiteness,  and  dependence. 
Instead  of  dealing  simply  with  the  primary  and  necessary 
ideas  of  the  mind,  as  the  ontological  method  professes  to 
do,  this  gives  attention  specially  to  the  existence  of  the 
external  world,  and  draws  its  evidence  from  it.  In  thus 
considering  the  world,  however,  it  does  not  concern  itself 
with  either  the  special  or  general  indications  of  purpose 
or  design  in  the  order  and  structure  of  nature,  but  deals 
with  its  phenomena  simply  as  exhibiting  a  system  of 
originated,  limited,  and  dependent  being.  It  is  the  inten- 
tion of  this  chapter  to  present  in  brief,  first  the  substance 
of  this  argument,  and  then  the  value  and  amount  of  its 
legitimate  conclusion. 

There  are  two  fundamental  and  essential  parts  in  the 
argument.  The  first  is  the  a  priori  principle  cind  laio  of 
cciusation.  The  second  is  that  the  loorld,  lohether  viewed 
in  its  pcirts  or  as  a  ^ohole,  is  afMite  cmd  dependent  exist- 
ence.    These  two  things  must  be  examined  separately. 

1.  In  accepting  and  proceeding  upon  the  principle  ex- 
pressed in  the  law  of  causation;  "  Every  event,  or  contin- 
gent 2)he7i077ienon,  must  have  a  cause^^  it  rests  on  a  self- 
evident  and  necessary  judgment  of  the  human  mind.  It 
is  one  of  those  ''  first  truths "  which  shine  in  their  own 


60  IS'ATURAL  THEOLOGY. 

light,  with  full  certainty  and  absolute  authority.  It  is  not 
simply  evident,  it  is  self-evident.  It  is  intuitively  seen  to 
be  a  necessary  truth,  as  soon  as  its  terms  are  understood. 
Its  contradictory  is  inconceivable.  Efforts  have  indeed 
been  steadily  made  to  bring  its  validity  into  doubt  —  such 
as  the  assertion  that  it  may  be  only  a  "form  of  thought," 
subjectively  unavoidable,  but  without  authority  for  real 
being  ^;  or  that  it  results  as  a  simple  appearance  from  the 
"  impotence  of  the  mind  "  to  think  beyond  experience  ";  or 
that  it  expresses  only  an  empirical  "  order  of  succession," 
a  mere  time-relation  of  habitually  observed  antecedence 
and  sequence,  no  real  power  or  efficiency  being  involved.^ 
And  this  makes  it  proper,  by  a  brief  examination  of  the 
law,  to  assure  ourselves  of  its  validity. 

(1)  The  primary  idea  of  cause  arises  out  of  our  con- 
sciousness and  experience.  Every  man  directly  knows 
himself  as  a  cause  —  of  thoughts,  volitions,  and  actions. 
He  finds  causes,  also,  in  the  outer  world.  He  is  compelled, 
by  both  consciousness  and  experience,  to  hold  them  as 
real  —  real  for  his  own  activities,  real  for  nature.  This 
simply  accounts  for  the  origin  of  the  idea.  It  begins  in 
particular- instances  of  real  causation. 

(2)  A  cause,  properly  defined,  is  that  by  which  any- 
thing that  was  not  comes  to  be.  It  means  the  power  that 
produces  a  change  or  event.  The  essence  of  the  idea  is 
that  of  activity,  or  an  efficient  energy  in  genuine  relation 
to  a  result.  "The  connection  between  cause  and  effect  is 
nothing  more  or  less  than  the  connection  between  action 
and  its  result.  This  connection  is  of  the  nature  of  a  ne- 
cessity; it  partakes  of  the  necessities  of  thought  itself."  *   A 

1  Kant.        2  Sir  W.  Hamilton.        s  Hume.  Thomas  Brown,  J.  S.  Mill,  etc. 
*Dr.  H.  N.  Day:  Ontological  Science,  p.  186. 


THE    COSMOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  61 

cause,  therefore,  is  not  simply  something  that  precedes  an 
event,  but  something  that,  while  preceding,  is  effective  for 
it.  This  at  once  answers  and  excludes  the  notion  which 
makes  the  law  but  an  expression  of  a  time-relation. 

(3)  The  laio  of  causation,  formally  expressed,  is  that 
"  every  event  must  have  a  cause,"  It  affirms  this  depend- 
ence of  "events,"  i.e.,  any  begun  existences,  or  changes, 
or  phenomena,  upon  causes,  as  universal.  It  does  not  say 
every  "effect,"  for  then  the  proposition  would  involve 
only  the  self-evidence  of  verbal  correlatives.  But  it  is 
impossible  to  conceive  of  something  arising  absolutely 
or  uncaused  out  of  nothing.  Ex  nihilo  nihil  jit.  The 
human  mind  is  compelled  to  hold  all  "events,"  or  what- 
ever was  not  but  begins  to  be,  as  effects. 

(4)  This  law  of  causation  is  intuitively  perceived  to  be 
certain  and  universal.  It  bears  the  tests  of  self-evidence, 
necessity,  and  universality. 

(5)  Its  valid  authority  is  further  supported  by  the  fact 
that  its  truth  is  necessarily  and  actually  assumed  as  funda- 
mental in  all  the  processes  of  knowledge,  in  all  the  activities 
of  life,  in  all  reasoning,  whether  inductive  or  deductive.  It 
is  assumed  as  a  pre-condition  to  the  very  inductions  which 
are  sometimes  claimed  to  give  the  law. 

(6)  If  it  be  said  that  the  apparent  necessary  universal- 
itv  of  the  law  is  due  simply  to  our  uniform  experience  only 
of  caused  events,  and  an  incompetency  to  transcend  expe- 
rience, and  that  with  a  different  experience  we  might  con- 
ceive of  them  without  any  cause  whatever,  it  is  enough  to 
replv  that  this  is  at  best  only  an  unknown  possibility. 
And  this  suggestion  of  "  mental  impotence "  presenting 
only  a  negative,  an  inability  to  think  the  contradictoiy  of 
the  law,  has  no  right  to  annul  a  positive  affirmation  of 


62  N^ATURAL    THEOLOGY. 

thought.  For  the  causal  judgment  gives  us  the  positive 
side  —  an  affirmative  judgment,  that  stands  authorized  in 
its  own  light,  no  matter  what  impotences  of  thought  may 
be  surmised. 

But  even  if  the  causal  judgment  should  be  conceded  to 
rest  on  a  one-sided,  though  uniform,  experience  of  man- 
kind, its  practical  validity  would  be  scarcely  less  than  if 
viewed  as  a  pure  intuition.  For  that  the  experience  of 
the  race,  in  its  millions  on  millions  and  through  all  ages, 
has  found  no  events  without  causes,  so  as  to  lift  thinking 
out  of  this  impotenc}^,  ought  to  be  sufficient  to  prove  what 
is  the  actual  truth  of  things,  and  to  accredit  the  causal 
law  as  trustworthy. 

(7)  These  same  principles  apply  to  the  Kantian  doubt 
whether  the  form  of  thought  is  entitled  to  hold  for  object- 
ive reality.  Kant  has  derived  the  idea  of  cause  from  sen- 
sible consciousness  of  events  in  time,  and  makes  the  law  of 
causality,  considered  as  a  principle  of  physical  science, 
purel}^  a  law  of  ''  order  in  time,"  and  not  a  power  or  etFi- 
ciency.  It  denotes  simply  the  fact  of  regular  phenomenal 
sequence.  His  view  of  it  is  part  of  a  system  of  relativity 
of  knowledge  or  phenomenalism  which  so  thoroughly  sepa- 
rates the  world,  as  apprehended  under  the  modifying,  color- 
ing, and  creative  action  of  our  perceiving  faculties,  from  the 
world  as  it  is  in  itself,  or  in  reality,  that  our  knowledge  be- 
comes unreliable  for  its  interpretation.  The  laws  of  its 
real  existence,  it  represents,  are  beyond  our  knowledge;  we 
have  only  mentally  imposed  appearances,  which,  are  unable 
to  carry  us  to  tlie  real  trutli  of  things.  This  error  has  been 
often  and  ably  pointed  out,  but  the  elaborate  refutations 
cannot  be  rehearsed  here.  Several  points  will  suffice. 
First,  that  Kant  has,  in  finding  the  idea  of  cause  essen- 


THE    COSMOLOGICAL    EVIDEKCE.  63 

tially  ill  temporal  antecedence  and  sequence,  really  given 
a  spurious  concept  of  it.      And,  secondly,  in  questioning 
its  validity  for  real  existence  while  asserting  its  intuitive 
necessity   as   a   "  form   of  knowledge,"  he   discredits  the 
trustworthiness  of  the  liuman  faculties  for  the  ascertain- 
ment of  truth.     Tlie  method  of  redactlo  ad  absurdum  is 
applicable  here.     This  imputation  of  illusion  and  falseness 
to  our  necessary  forms  of  tliought  is  intellectual  suicide. 
If  that  which  is  most  clear,  most  universal,  and  most  per- 
manent in  botli  sensuous  and  rational  perception,  and  is  of 
necessity  "  regulative  "  for  every  kind  of  knowledge,  both 
common  and  scientific,  is,  after  all,  only  a  mental  fiction, 
a  ghostly  shadow,  then  the  whole  superstructure  of  knowl- 
edge floats  away  in  air.     To  deny  such  primitive  truths  is 
to  remove  the  foundations  of  all  knowledge  and  fall  into 
absolute  skepticism.     If  this  overthrows  the  proofs  of  the- 
ism, it  at  the  same  time  overthrows  the  arguments  against 
theism.     These  consequences  do  not,  indeed,  prove  the  va- 
lidity of  the  law  of  causation,  but  they  show  the  impossi- 
bility of  disproof  of  it.     Tlie  law  remains  unaffected  by  the 
theory  that  questions   it,   because  the  tlieory  annihilates 
itself  in  the  self-destroying  force  and  absurdity  of  its  own 
implications. 

(8)  But  the  method  of  science  makes  a  vindication  of 
the  validity  of  the  law  of  causation  hardly  needful  in  our 
day.  This  has  refused  to  recognize,  or  be  disturbed  by, 
these  discrediting  suggestions.  So  far  as  metaphysics 
keeps  on  questioning  its  validity,  it  is  out  of  harmony 
with  the  great  working  principle  of  science.  The  reality 
and  universality  of  the  law  of  causation  is  the  grand  fun- 
damental postulate  of  all  scientific  investigation  and  con- 
clusions.    It  is  assumed  and  believed  without  a  doubt.     It 


64  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

is  followed  with  a  confidence  that  is  impatient  of  any  ques- 
tion as  to  the  safety  of  the  conclusions  which  it  authorizes. 
The  great  working  idea  of  the  science  of  the  age  is  that 
all  nature  is  moving  and  developing  under  invariable 
causal  law,  that  all  phenomena  are  capable  of  explanation 
by  being  brought  under  the  connections  it  expresses,  and 
that  by  the  guidance  of  this  law  of  cause  and  effect  it  may 
trace  back  the  line  and  order  of  the  earth's  evolution,  and 
write  out  the  story  of  its  development,  from  the  earliest 
geologic  and  astronomic  beginnings.  Never  before  did 
science,  with  such  unhesitating  belief,  make  this  self- 
evident  law  of  causation  its  working  principle  in  endeavor 
to  find  the  beginnings  and  understand  the  realities  of 
nature.  It  takes  it  as  absolutely  universal,  necessary,  and 
valid  for  all  contingent  phenomena  and  truth,  practically 
dismissing  speculative  difficulties  as  of  no  account.' 

1  How  thoroughly  science  has  based  itself  on  the  validity  of  the  law  of 
causation  is  best  shown  by  a  few  quotations: 

Du  Bois  Raymond  says:  Natural  Science  — more  accurately  expressed, 
scientific  knowledge  of  nature,  or  knowledge  of  the  material  world  by  the  aid 
and  in  the  sense  of  theoretical  physical  science  —  is  a  reduction  of  the  changes 
in  the  material  world  to  motions  of  atoms  caused  by  central  forces  independent 
of  time,  or  a  resolution  of  the  phenomena  of  nature  into  atomic  mechanics.  It 
is  a  fact  of  psychological  experience  that  whenever  such  reduction  is  success- 
fully effected,  our  craving  for  causality  is,  for  the  time  being,  uiiolly  satisfied. 
.  ..-.  .  When  the  changes  in  the  material  world  have  been  reduced  to  a  constant 
sum  of  potential  and  kinetic  energy  inherent  in  a  constant  mass  of  matter, 
there  is  nothing  left  in  these  changes  for  explanation. 

Haeckel  says:  The  general  theory  of  evolution  assumes  that  in  nature 
there  is  a  great,  unital,  continuous,  and  everlasting  process  of  development,  and 
that  all  natural  phenomena  without  exception,  from  the  motion  of  the  celestial 
bodies  and  the  fall  of  the  rolling  stone  up  to  the  growth  of  the  plant  and  the 
consciousness  of  man,  are  subject  to  the  same  great  law  of  causation  —  that  they 
are  ultimately  reduced  to  atomic  mechanics.— i^reie  Wissenschaft  und  Freie 
Lehre,  p.  9.  Though  this  expresses  Haeckel' s  materialism,  it  serves  well  to 
illustrate  the  place  given  to  this  law. 

Wundt,  the  great  physiologist,  says:  The  view  which  has  now  become 
dominant,  and  is  ordinarily  designated  as  the  mechanical  or  physical  view,  has 
its  origin  in  the  causal  conception  long  prevalent  in  the  kindred  departments  of 
natural  science,  which  regards  nature  as  a  single  chain  of  causes  and  effects 


THE    COSMOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  65 

The  first  part  of  this  cosmological  evidence  is,  there- 
fore, one  of  the  deepest  and  most  incontestable  principles 
or  laws  known  to  the  human  mind:  ''  Everything  that  has 
a  beginning  must  have  a  cause  —  an  adequate  cause." 
That  is  to  say,  only  self-existent,  eternally  existent  being 
can  be  without  a  cause. 

2.  The  other  part  is:  The  universe,  ichether  viewed  in 
its  parts  or  as  a  lohole,  is  necessarily  viewed  as  a  finite 
and  dependent  existence.  This  includes  several  affirma- 
tions: 

First,  the  real  existence  of  the  universe.  It  may 
seem  superfluous  to  assert  so  plain  a  truth,  but  nothing  is 
superfluous  which  helps  to  obviate  doubts  and  insure  cer- 
tainty in  this  reasoning.  We  obtain  a  clear  and  certain 
starting  point  in  our  immediate  and  necessary  conscious- 
ness of  self  as  existing.  No  man  can  doubt  his  own 
existence.  In  thinking,  feeling,  acting,  he  finds  himself,  in 
an  immediate  knowledge.  In  his  sensible  consciousness 
he  also  necessarily  apprehends  something  not  self.  This 
not-self,  or  external  something,  also  is  directly  and  una- 
voidably known. 

On  both  the  subjective  and  objective  sides,  therefore, 
real  existence  is  assured,  whatever  account  may  be  given 
of  the  reality.  And  when  through  sensible  experience, 
under  the  guidance  and  completing  help  of  the  reason,  we 
obtain  the  widest  and  most  thorough  knowledge  that  scien- 
tific research  can  give  of  the  great  universe,  we  know  it, 
with  valid  certainty,  as  really  existing. 

Secondly,  this  universe  is  finite  and  dependent,  and 
cannot,  therefore,  have  the  ultimate  reason  or  ground  of 

wherein  the  ultimate  laws  of  caii?al  action  are  the  laws  of  mechanics.— Ze/ir- 
buch  der  PhyHologie  cles  Menschen. 
5 


66  JSTATUKAL   THEOLOGY. 

its  existence  in  itself.  Nature,  not  only  in  all  its  parts 
without  exception,  but  as  unified  under  the  completest 
generalizations  of  science,  is  found  to  be  limited,  finite, 
and  dependent.  Everything  is  conditioned  in  and  on 
something  else,  and  this  in  turn  on  others.  Everything  is 
made  what  it  is  by  existing  in  relation  to  other  things. 
This  is  true  of  all  the  existences  and  phenomena  that  con- 
stitute a  world,  and  of  systems  of  worlds.  Independent, 
non-conditioned  existence  is  discovered  nowhere.  In  the 
organic  world  the  dependence  and  limitation  are  conspicu- 
ous. Every  mind  is  limited  in  power.  The  entire  assem- 
blage of  existences  and  phenomena  known  or  conceived 
of  in  space  and  time,  is  an  aggregate  of  parts  dependent 
on  parts  equally  dependent.  No  addition  of  finite  exist- 
ences can  make  an  infinite.  No  accumulation  of  depend- 
ent existences  can  make  the  independent.  The  whole, 
therefore,  forms  a  finite  and  dependent  universe.  The  cause 
of  it,  therefore,  cannot  be  found  in  itself.  If  we  run  back 
through  the  connections  of  its  existences  and  phenomena, 
we  find  only  causes  which  are  in  themselves  effects  requir- 
ing preceding  causes.  An  "  infinite  series  "  of  dependent 
existences  is  a  contradiction  in  terms  and  impossible  in 
thought.  A  chain  of  dependent  things  cannot  hang  on 
nothing.  There  must  be  a  first  cause  for  it.  Hence  for 
this  finite  and  dependent  universe'  as  a  whole,  there  must 
be  a  self-existent  and  independent  cause.  An  infinite, 
unconditioned,  i.e.,  independent,  cause  is  the  necessary 
correlate  to  a  finite  and  conditioned  universe. 

3.  There  are  two  ways  in  which  this  conclusion  has 
been  supposed  to  be  brought  into  doubt.  One  is  by 
denying  that  our  necessary  laws  of  thought  —  in  this  case 
the  law  of  causation  —  are  applicable  to  the  real  universe, 


THE    COiSMOLOGlCAL    EViDE:NCE.  67 

and  the  other  by  claiming-  that  the  universe  itself  may  be 
infinite  and  eternal.  A  brief  explanation,  however,  will 
show  how  little  reason  there  is  for  doubt  from  either  of 
these  points. 

(1)  The  only  ground  on  which  it  is  said  that  the  law 
of  causation  cannot  be  taken  as  holding  in  this  relation, 
is  the  suggestion  that  all  our  knowledge  of  the  world  is  a 
factitious  product  of  our  sensible  consciousness,  and  that 
of  things  as  they  really  are,  or  "  in  themselves,"  we  know 
nothing.  The  theory  teaches  a  "relativity"  which  leaves 
all  knowledge  a  pure  phenomenalism,  and  puts  an  impassa- 
ble gulf  between  all  appearances  and  the  possible  realities. 
It  "arbitrarily  assumes  that  there  is  no  correspondence 
between  things  as  they  really  are  and  things  as  they 
apiJear  to  i/s.^^  ^  It  questions  whether  our  subjective  law 
of  thought  is  also  a  law  of  things.  But  it  concedes  that 
if  things  really  are  as  they  are  apprehended,  the  law  is 
both  valid  and  necessarily  applicable.  And  it  must  be 
remembered  that  this  supposition  that  things  in  them- 
selves are  different  from  the  forms  in  which  our  minds 
must  know  them,  is  wholly  gratuitous  and  without  war- 
rant. "The  same  incompetency  of  our  faculties  which 
prevents  us  from  asserting  that  things  really  are  as  they 
appear  to  us,  equally  forbids  us  to  maintain  that  they  are 
not  as  they  appear."  We  surely  have  no  warrant  to  say 
that  they  are  not  as  we  know  tJion  to  be  hy  all  our  facul- 
ties of  knowing.  And  more  than  this  —  if  any  principle 
has  been  adequately  and  firmly  settled  in  the  progress  of 
philosophy,  it  is  that  real  "  being  "  is  the  only  true  reason 
and  explanation  of  "knowing."  The  ratio  coynosceoidi 
is  founded  on  the  ratio  essendi.     All  knowledge  begins, 

iProf.  Francis  Boweu:  Modern  Philosophy,  p.  183. 


68  IfATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

through  both  sense-perception  and  consciousness,  in  a 
knowledge  of  heing  —  ourselves  and  realities  around  us. 
Even  space  as  the  condition  for  material  bodies,  comes 
out  of  our  knowledge  of  body  in  the  concrete,  with  three 
dimensions.  So  time,  as  the  condition  for  events,  is 
known  through  a  conscious  succession  of  individual  exist- 
ences, both  mental  and  physical.  All  true  knowledge,  at 
its  very  roots,  is  ontological,  or  knowledge  of  real  being. 
The  theory  of  the  pure  subjectivity  of  Time,  Space, 
Cause,  etc.,  is  utterly  contradicted  by  the  fundamental 
process  of  knowing.  Space  is  known  as  a  form  of  things 
before  it  is  known  as  a  form  of  thought.  Time  in  the 
realities  of  actual  duration  is  known  before  the  generic 
concept  of  Time.  Cause  is  known  as  a  real  power  before 
it  is  generalized  as  a  law.  Our  knowing  is  guided  by 
being.  Tlie  philosophy  that  abandons  this  principle  can 
be  no  guide  whatever  to  the  truth  of  things.^ 

(2)  The  suggestion  that  the  universe  itself  may  be 
infinite  and  eternal  is  without  supporting  evidence.  It  is 
not  only  opposed  to  the  natural  appearance  of  things, 
but  disowned  by  some  of  the  most  thoroughly  assured 
conclusions  of  science.  In  the  face  of  these  the  oft-re- 
peated supposition  of  "  an  eternal  succession,"  in  its  cus- 
tomary or  accredited  sense,  has  no  place.  Science  admits 
not  only  each  man  to  have  had  a  beginning,  but  the  race 
itself,  animal  life  and  organizations  of  all  sorts,  the  rocks 
of  the  globe,  the  very  globe  itself,  the  whole  solar  system, 
and  systems  of  systems.  It  postulates  a  time  when  the 
earth  was  not.  Science,  as  well  as  theolog\^,  has  turned 
its  efforts  to  account  for  the  "  genesis "  of  the  world. 
And  the  accepted,  if  not  established,  theories  of  modern 

1  Harris'  Philosophical  Basis  of  Theism,  Chap.  VII. 


THE    COSMOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  GO 

science  have  failed  to  iind  infinity  or  eternity  in  the  phys- 
ical universe.  Its  fundamental  working  basis  is  the  pos- 
tulate of  atoms,  as  the  ultimate  particles  or  units  by 
whose  juxtaposition  the  chemical  substances  and  the 
whole  world  of  bodies,  with  all  their  forms,  states,  and 
changes,  are  composed  or  produced.  Atoms  are  used  as 
the  necessary  presuppositions  to  explain  the  genesis  and 
occurrence  of  all  the  phenomena  which  constitute  the 
universe  of  known  existence.  Tliis  is  the  atomo-mechan- 
ical  theory,  now  dominating  scientific  work.  These  hypo- 
thetical atoms  are  variously  conceived  of;  by  some  as 
ultimate  units  with  actual  extension,  hard  and  inelastic, 
by  others  as  perfectly  elastic.  Some  consider  them  not 
as  material  elements,  but  centres  of  force.  Some  con- 
ceive "  energy "  as  disparate,  and  speak  of  matter  and 
force,  others  as  inherent  and  one  with  the  atoms.  Still 
others  hold  the  atoms  to  be  vortex-rings  or  motions  in  a 
homogeneous  and  perfectly  frictionless  fluid  existing  in 
space.  The  conception  under  which  the  atomic  theory 
may  be  summarized  and  unified  is  that  the  atom  is  an 
ultimate  particle  or  point  in  which  a  series  of  motions 
manifest  themselves.  It  is  of  course  impossible  to  con- 
ceive of  motion  without  anything  to  move,  or  without 
force  or  energy  acting  in  relation  to  the  particle  or  point 
moving.  According  to  the  atomo-mechanical  theory, 
therefore,  atoms  and  motion  lie  at  the  origin  and  develop- 
ment of  the  physical  universe.  Thus  matter,  and  all  phe- 
nomenal being  as  known  by  human  sense-perception,  are 
resolved  into  "  modes  of  motion."  All  forces  are  consid- 
ered as  one  and  the  same  force  differently  manifested  in 
these  modes  of  motion.  The  "conservation"  or  "per- 
sistence   of    energy,"    and    its  "  correlation "    or    transfer 


70  NATURAL  THEOLOGY. 

from  form  to  form  and  from  potential  to  active  state  and 
back  again  without  loss,  follows  as  a  part  of  the  mechani- 
cal explanation.  The  idea  is  given  that  the  sum  total  of 
matter  and  energy  in  the  universe  is  constant,  none  being- 
added,  none  destroyed.  It  is  always  either  manifested  as 
force  or  becomes  potential,  though  quiet,  as  power. 

Now  it  is  true  that  this  theory,  viewed  in  the  gross,  has 
been  used  to  give  color  to  the  notion  that  the  universe 
may  have  been  in  motion  from  eternity  and  will  continue 
to  eternity,  that  it  is  not  dependent,  but  infinite  in  time,  a 
self-existent  perpetual  motion.  But  a  closer  examination 
shows  this  conclusion  to  be  hasty  and  unauthorized.  When 
we  reach  the  teleological  argument,  with  its  great  facts 
of  order,  adjustment,  and  specific  organizations,  the  impo- 
tence of  the  theory  in  itself  to  account  for  the  universe  as 
we  find  it  will  become  fully  evident.  It  is  only  necessary 
here  to  point  out  that  it  fails  to  prove  that  the  universe  is 
not  finite  and  dependent,  (a)  The  atoms  being  finite  par- 
ticles or  centres  of  force,  the  supposition  of  an  infinitely 
extended  universe  can  be  gotten  only  by  assuming  the 
atoms  to  be  infinite  in  number.  But  even  this  is  inade- 
quate; for  no  addition  of  finites  can  give  the  true  infinite. 
Here  a  fact  of  limitation  at  once  enters  —  limitation  in 
extension,  (b)  A  probable  limitation  in  time  also  appears. 
The  '-conservation  of  energy"  is  found  to  be  qualified  by 
the  counter  truth  of  the  "  dissipation  of  energ}'."  The 
transformations  have  not  been  found  absolutely  complete 
or  the  movements  always  fully  reversible.  Under  tests 
matliematically  applied,  in  some  relations  mechanical 
energy  has  shown  a  tendency  to  become  more  and  more 
dissipated.  Matter  not  under  the  control  of  organic  life 
exhibits  a  tendency  toward  a  stable  equilibrium.     Atten- 


THE   COSMOLOGICAL   EVIDEN"CE.  71 

tion  has  often  been  called  to  this,  in  its  relation  to  the 
astronomical  systems.  The  sun  is  radiating  into  space  an 
enormous  amount  of  energy,  as  light  and  heat.  The  sup- 
ply, though  it  may  last  for  many  millions  of  years,  is  not 
inexhaustible.  Some  of  the  heat  is  received  by  surround- 
ing planets,  but  much  of  it  must  pass  out  beyond  the 
limits  of  the  universe  as  known  to  us,  radiated  in  every 
direction  into  space.  Science,  though  it  has  labored  at 
the  problem,  knows  no  way  in  which  it  can  be  restored. 
The  sun  is  cooling,  the  planets  are  cooling,  the  stream  of 
chief  energy  for  the  whole  system  is  diminishing.  In  the 
words  of  Clausius,  who  has  called  special  attention  to  this 
fact:  "If  transformations  in  one  definite  direction  exceed 
in  magnitude  those  in  the  opposite  direction,  the  entire 
condition  of  the  universe  must  always  continue  to  change 
in  that  first  direction,  and  the  universe  must  consequently 
approach  incessantly  to  a  limiting  condition."  This  dis- 
sipation tends  to  final  equilibrium,  and  this,  under  the 
mechanical  theory  that  all  things  are  modes  of  motion, 
is  undistinguishable  from  annihilation,  (c)  The  only  con- 
ceivable way  of  avoiding  this  conclusion  is  by  supposing 
the  number  of  bodies  in  the  universe  to  be  really  infinite. 
Then  the  radiation  would  all  be  re-absorbed.  The  energy 
would  all  be  retained  within  it  somewhere.  A  re-trans- 
formation could  be  conceived  as  occurring  in  great  cycles, 
and  the  universe  might  be  eternal.  But  not  only  does 
this  supposition  offer  a  purely  imaginary  hypothesis,  but 
it  impales  itself  on  the  fact  that  an  infinite  number  of 
worlds  is  impossible  from  the  finite  atoms  with  which  the 
theory  starts.  Limitation  is  an  essential  quality  of  matter, 
whether  as  atoms  or  aggregations  of  them.  No  multipli- 
cation of  it  can  yield  an  infinite  universe.     The  universe  is 


72  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

thus  limited  in  both  space  and  time,  even  when  viewed  in 
the  light  of  the  mechanical  theory.  The  conclusion,  there- 
fore, remains  substantially  unimpaired:  For  this  finite 
and  conditioned  universe  there  must  be  a  self-existent, 
unconditioned,  eternal  cause,  (d)  Another  fact  of  limita- 
tion must  be  included.  In  ?nind  we  have  a  succession  of 
distinct  personal  beings,  begun  in  time,  non-material  enti- 
ties, limited  in  number  and  power.  These  are  to  be  added 
to  the  aggregate  of  physical  nature,  to  make  up  the  uni- 
verse as  we  know  it.  Neither  science  nor  philosophy  has 
as  yet  succeeded  in  identifying  matter  and  mind,  or  estab- 
lishing the  theory  of  monism  or  the  existence  of  only  one 
substance  or  kind  of  being.  We  may  safely  affirm  that  it 
cannot  do  it.  For  monism  necessarily  breaks  at  the 
start  by  arbitrarily  denying  the  veracity  of  conscious- 
ness, which  immediately  and  necessarily  presents  a  knowl- 
edge of  both  the  ego  and  the  non-ego  in  irreducible 
antithesis.  This  ego  or  self  is  the  only  strictly  indi- 
vidual and  indivisible  being  that  we  know  —  lying-  in  the 
deepest  foundation  of  all  our  knowledge.  The  reasoning 
that  attempts  to  count  out  self-conscious  mind  from  real 
being,  by  refuting  consciousness,  refutes  itself  in  pushing 
all  knowledge  from  its  primary  and  only  basis.  Here, 
then,  in  human  minds,  is  a  world  of  self-conscious,  self- 
determining,  spiritual,  or  at  least  non-material  dependent 
beings,  for  which  a  cause  is  needed.  Science  confesses 
that  it  has  no  solution  for  living,  free,  self-conscious  beings, 
in  any  known  qualities  or  powers  of  matter.  This  fact 
adds  force  to  the  demand  for  the  existence  of  an  infinite, 
unconditioned  First  Cause.  Indeed,  it  requires  a  self- 
conscious  First  Cause. 

4.    It   is  to  be   conceded  that  the  cosmological   proof 


THE    COSMOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  73 

Lacks  in  direct  I'orce  for  the  establishment  of  the  2^<^^'son- 
ality  of  the  self-existent  First  Cause.  In  itself,  as  usually 
stated,  or  without  including  the  fact  and  presence  of 
mind  in  the  world,  the  argument  might  be  held  to 
prove  only  a  self-existent  something,  perhaps  an  im- 
personal, blind  force  or  energy,  without  the  attributes 
which  necessarily  enter  into  the  conception  of  God.  We 
need  further  and  different  evidences,  to  secure  us  against 
the  Scylla  and  Charybdis  of  materialism  and  pantheism. 
However,  without  as  yet  drawing  upon  teleology,  this 
argument,  when  its  implications  are  developed,  goes  far 
toward  the  proof  of  personality.  For  (1)  by  necessary 
conception  a  First  Cause  is  one,  not  many;  (2)  the  First 
Cause  must  be  du  free  Cause;  for  that  which  is  first  is  truly 
unconditioned,  self-existent,  and  self-determining;  (3)  a 
Free  Cause  must  be  an  intelligent  Cause.  We  never 
reach  the  sphere  of  freedom  until  we  emerge  from  the 
material  into  the  spiritual,  until  we  leave  matter  and 
reach  mind.  By  consent  of  all  great  thinkers,  self-deter- 
mining being,  being  containing  in  itself  the  cause  of  its 
own  activity  and  changes,  is  necessarily  conceived  of  as 
Mind  or  intelligent  Will.'  A  self-determining  personal 
Spirit  or  Mind,  and  intelligent  Will  alone,  therefore,  must 
be  the  First  or  Originating  Cause.  Logical  necessity  thus 
drives  us,  not  only  to  assert  the  existence  of  an  ultimate, 
independent  Cause,  but  to  regard  that  Cause  as  an  Infinite 
Personality. 

1  Liberty  without  intelligence  is  no  liberty;  it  is  caprice,  or  rather  fate  and 
chance.— Pgm^  Janet:  Final  Causes,  p.  klO. 


CHAPTEE  lY. 

THE  TELEOLOGICAL  EVIDENCE. 

ji^ROM  the  earliest  days  of  Greek  philosophy  men 
-*-  have  been  accustomed  to  vindicate  their  belief  in  an 
intelligent  and  wise  author  of  the  world  by  appealing  to 
the  evident  marks  of  order,  plan,  and  purpose  in  nature. 
Socrates  pointed  his  disciples  to  numerous  facts  of  clear 
adaptation  and  design  as  justifying  his  conclusion  that 
"man  must  be  the  masterpiece  of  some  great  artificer," 
and  that  the  stupendous  universe  "could  not  have  been 
produced  by  chance,  but  by  intelligence."  ^  The  mind  of 
Cicero  was  greatly  impressed  by  these  facts,  and  in  his 
De  JSTatura  Deorum  he  employed  them  with  much  ful- 
ness and  beauty  of  illustration.^  This  way  of  reasoning 
has  always  been  by  far  the  most  common  method  of  the- 
istic  proof.  This  is  not  only  because  the  materials  it 
employs  are  open  to  the  view  of  all  men  in  even  ordinary 
observation,  and  are  strongly  impressive,  but  because  of 
the  strength  and  certainty  of  the  foundations  on  which  it 
rests.  The  perpetual  wonders  of  nature  give  it  a  peren- 
nial force.  It  is  the  most  effective  and  useful  form  of 
proof,  because  it  appeals  to  principles  which  a  child  can 
understand,  and  which  a  philosopher  cannot  explain 
away.  It  has  not,  indeed,  been  allowed  to  stand  unchal- 
lenged. As  might  be  expected,  it  has  been  subjected  to 
the  severest  criticism.  But  though  often  assailed,  it  not 
only  abides  in  the  spontaneous  reasoning  of  the  human 

Xenophon's  Memorabilia,  I,  4;  IV,  3,  13.        2  Lib.  IL 
74 


THE   TELEOLOGK'AL   EVIDENCE.  75 

soul  wlieii  face  to  face  with  nature,  but  it  vindicates  its 
metaphysical  and  logical  soundness  in  the  judgment  of 
the  profoundest  and  best  balanced  tliought  of  our  age. 
While  materialists  and  atheists,  apparently  irritated  by 
its  evident  force  and  influence,  have  invoked  all  possible 
resources  of  speculation  against  it,  and  even  some  theists, 
misled  by  specious  but  factitious  difficulties  or  liasty  tim- 
idit}^  have  been  betrayed  into  ill-advised  and  unnecessary 
concessions,  the  thorough  discussions  which  have  been 
called  forth,  in  a  measure  that  has  given  tlie  subject  a 
literature  of  exceeding  richness,  have  but  served  to  show 
its  immovable  foundations,  and  to  buttress  every  essential 
part  of  the  argument.  When,  as  the  outcome  of  a  cen- 
tury of  such  discussion,  the  best  assured  results  or  con- 
clusions of  modern  science  and  philosophy  are  summed 
up  —  as  they  have  been  summed  up  lately  with  clear  dis- 
crimination and  judicial  calmness^ — the  argument  re- 
mains essentially  unimpeached.  We  believe  it  is  unim- 
peachable. 

The  teleological  evidence  —  from  r^lo:;,  end,  and  ^oyo:;, 
discourse  or  discussion  —  is  derived  from  the  manifold 
facts  of  order,  purpose,  design,  or  adaptation  of  means  to 
ends,  in  nature.  It  reasons  from  the  clear  indications  of 
plan,  counsel,  and  thought  in  the  economy  of  nature  to 
the  existence  of  a  Thinker  wlio  stands  to  it  in  the  relation 
of  an  intelligent  Cause.  AVhile  the  cosmological  argu- 
ment rests  upon  the  contingency  of  the  world,  this  em- 
pliasizes  the  facts  of  order  and  aim,  plan  and  adjustment, 
almost  everywhere  perceived.  It  is  commonly  called  the 
argument  iroxn  final  causes  or  desif/)i.     The  term  "final 

iTlie  allusion  is  to  Paul  Janet's  Final  Causes,  a  work  that  must  be  monu- 
mental, as  at  once  an  able  argument  and  aresuvit  of  the  issues  of  modern 
science  and  philosophy  on  this  subject. 


76  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

cause "  was  originated  by  the  scholastics  on  the  basis  of 
Aristotle's  fourfold  distinction  of  causes.  Giving  Latin 
expression  to  Aristotle's  phrases,  they  enumerated  what 
we  translate  as  the  ^^  material  caitse^''  the  material  ele- 
ments; the  ^^ formal  cause,''''  the  properties  which  consti- 
tute the  form;  the  ^^ efficient  cause,''''  the  producing  energy, 
and  the  ^\fi)ial  cause,''''  the  end  [finis,  riXoq)  on  account  of 
which,  or  for  the  sake  of  which  {to  ou  si^sxa),  the  action  is 
done  or  the  thing  made.  The  teleological  argument  is, 
therefore,  the  application  of  the  principle  of  "ends," 
"final  causes,"  or  design  to  the  question  of  the  being 
of  God. 

The  aim  of  this  chapter  is  to  exhibit  this  form  of  evi- 
dence, as  it  stands  in  the  light  of  present  knowledge. 
Necessary  brevity  will  restrict  us,  however,  to  the  lead- 
ing and  essential  parts  of  the  proof.  We  divide  the 
whole  discussion  into  three  sections,  presenting  succes- 
sively a  statement  of  the  fundamental  and  general  princi- 
ples of  the  argument,  the  evidence  of  final  cause  in 
nature,  and  the  valid  necessity  of  concluding  to  the  exist- 
ence of  an  intelligent  and  self-determining  cause  that  is 
God. 

SECTION  I. 

EXPLAXATIOXS    AND    FuXDAMEXTAL    PrTXCIPLES. 

1.  Defi?iitio7iof  ^\/inal  cause  ^^  or'' desiffn.''^  By  a  final 
cause  is  meant  an  end  (finis,  riXoq)  as  j^^edetennined  and 
arranged  for  in  the  action  of  the  forces  which  effect  it. 
It  is  illustrated  whenever  a  movement  or  complex  of 
movements  is  controlled  or  directed  with  a  view  to  a 
specific  and  predetermined  result.     As  the  notion  of  final 


THE    TELEOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  77 

cause  is  primarily  derived  from  consciousness,  it  will  be 
best  understood  by  looking  at  it  in  examples  of  human 
activity  and  experience.  Take  a  connnon  instance:  A 
man  makes  a  table.  The  immediate  cause  of  the  table  is 
the  mechanical  action  of  the  tools  or  work  which  shapes 
and  combines  the  parts;  but  the  determining  cause  is  the 
intelligent  purpose  of  the  artisan.  The  effect,  which 
appears  at  the  close  of  the  work,  is,  from  the  first,  as  an 
idea,  the  directing  cause  of  the  whole  process.  A  table 
appears  at  the  end  only  because  a  table  is  predetermined 
at  the  beginning.  The  end  conceived  and  willed  becomes 
the  reason  and  explanation  of  what  is  done.  The  design 
becomes  the  real  cause.  Such  an  example  gives  us  the 
fundamental  conception  of  final  cause.  It  shows  that 
under  it  efficient  causes  become  subordinate,  being  con- 
trolled and  directed  by  the  predetermined  result.  It 
involves  three  distinct  conditions:  (1)  Foresight  of  an  end; 
(2)  determination  to  realize  it;  and  (3)  directive  suprem- 
acy over  all  the  forces  by  which  as  means  the  end  is 
attained.  As  a  complete  definition,  therefore,  we  may 
say  that  final  cause  is  the  purpose  which,  having  con- 
ceived or  idealized  the  end,  coordinates  and  controls  the 
whole  series  of  phenomena  of  which  that  end  appears  as 
the  result.  The  end  works  as  a  design  or  purposive  cause 
from  the  beginning. 

The  distinguishing  characteristic,  therefore,  of  final 
cause  is  '''■adaptation  to  the  future  ^^  or  ^^coordination  of 
means  to  specific  ends.'^''  And  this  explains  the  peculiar 
meaning  of  the  word  "design"  when  applied  to  this 
relation  in  nature.  Exception  has  often  been  taken 
to  its  use  in  this  argument.  We  are  told  that  it  is  absurd 
to  speak  of  design  in  unconscious  nature,  since  the  word 


78  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

expresses  a  function  or  act  of  the  mind.  It  is  true  that 
subjectively  and  in  primary  sense  design  can  exist  only  in 
mind.  And  the  teleological  argument  not  only  recog- 
nizes this  fact,  but  insists  on  it,  and  rests  its  final  conclu- 
sion on  it.  But  objectively  and  in  secondary  sense  the 
term  is  properly  applied  to  the  adaptation,  adjustment, 
order,  arrangement,  or  mechanism  which  comes  as  the  result 
or  product  of  the  action  of  a  purposing  intelligence.  The 
human  purpose,  for  instance,  which  conceived  and  made  the 
watch  to  measure  time,  is  recorded  in  the  whole  structure 
of  the  watch.  The  design,  which  started  as  an  ideal, 
passes  over  into  material  structure  as  coordination  and 
adaptation  in  the  product.  The  watch  is  the  maker's 
thought  expressed  and  recorded.  So  we  justly  speak  of 
design  in  the  product  —  the  adjustment  of  its  parts  to 
its  intended  use.  In  this  secondary  sense  the  word  is 
rightly  applied  to  the  phenomena  of  nature,  considered  as 
exhibiting  adaptations  which  have  been  determined  bv 
their  intended  ends.  In  this  use  of  it  nature  is  viewed  as 
a  visual  language.  Its  phenomena  are  the  visual  words 
in  which  the  human  intelligence  reads  the  thought,  inten- 
tion, or  mind  of  its  author.  That  the  order,  harmony,  and 
adaptation  which  we  discover  in  nature  are  actually  and 
certainly  due  to  a  designing  intelligence,  as  an  engine  is 
due  to  the  human  purpose  which  constructed  it,  is  not, 
indeed,  at  this  stage  of  the  argument  positively  assumed. 
Such,  however,  is  the  clear  and  admitted  appearance;  and 
while  the  argument  does  not  begin  by  at  once  assuming 
this  conclusion,  it  proposes  to  investigate  this  unquestion- 
able appearance,  with  full  confidence  that  in  the  end  these 
indications  of  thought  and  adaptation  that  crowd  upon 
our  view  in  nature  will  be  seen  to  be  invincible  proofs  of 


THE   TELEOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  79 

tlu!  existence  and  work  of  a  thinker  as  the  author  of  the 
world. 

This  general  account  of  final  cause  fixes  the  meaning  of 
a  number  of  terms  used  in  connection  with  it.  (1)  Design, 
when  used  objectiveh^,  stands  for  the  end  or  adaptation  as 
preconceived  and  accomplished  by  the  designer.  (2) 
Adaptation  signifies  the  fitness  of  one  thing  to  another. 
It  may  be  the  fitness  of  efficient  causes  to  produce  the 
intended  result,  of  part  to  part  in  the  structure  of  an 
organism,  or  of  the  whole  organism  to  its  purpose.  (3) 
Order'  means  regularity  in  coexistence  or  succession  of 
events.  It  may  be  simply  the  uniformity  which  appears 
when  the  same  causes,  operating  in  the  same  circum- 
stances, produce  the  same  effects.  It  is  not  necessarily 
the  result  of  intentionality.  Or  it  may  be  "the  intelligent 
arrangement  of  means  to  accomplish  an  end,  the  harmo- 
nious relation  established  between  the  parts  for  the  good 
of  the  whole."  In  the  former  sense  it  implies  only  effi- 
cient causation;  in  the  latter  sense  it  involves  final  cause. 
Order  alone,  therefore,  is  not  necessarily  in  all  cases  the 
proof  of  design, 

2.  The  relation  of  final  to  efficient  cause.  This  argu- 
ment recognizes  the  luiion  of  these  two  kinds  of  causes  in 
nature.  It  does  this,  it  is  believed,  by  no  doubtful  right. 
For  in  the  very  source  of  the  first  discovery  of  both  forms 
of  causation,  in  the  human  consciousness,  they  are  found 
coexistent  and  concurrent.  We  know  ourselves  unques- 
tionably as  both  designing  and  acting,  as  exerting  both 
final  and  efficient  causation. 

Like  the  cosmological  proof,  this  proceeds  upon  the 
great  fundamental  a  priori  principle  of  causality  —  that 
every  event  must  have  a  cause.     And  it  reads  this  law  in 


80  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

its  fullest  scope  and  universality.  It  accepts  the  reality 
and  regular  action  of  force  in  all  its  known  modes  and 
characteristics,  whether  mechanical,  chemical,  or  vital.  In 
this  it  proceeds  on  the  common  basis  of  all  philosophic 
science.  It  looks  on  nature,  therefore,  in  this  respect,  with 
no  private  eye,  but  in  the  universally  accepted  view  of 
both  common  and  scientific  observation.  It  believes  that 
efficient  causes  are  found  everywhere,  and  that  all  events 
are  brought  about  by  them.  Its  fundamental  position  is 
that  there  must  be  a  cause  for  every  phenomenon.  And, 
true  to  the  law  in  its  deepest  and  fullest  conception,  it  en- 
larges the  comprehension  of  it  so  as  to  say  distinctly  that 
the  cause  must  be  adequate  to  all  that  appears  in  the 
effect.  The  nature  of  the  cause  must  be  such  as  to  ac- 
count for  the  whole  product.  For  an  effect  which  reveals 
no  adaptation,  the  law  might  be  satisfied  with  a  for- 
tuitous or  blind  force  ;  but  for  one  that  exhibits  a  clear 
purpose  or  composite  adjustments,  it  demands  an  intelli- 
gent cause.  For  a  complex  movement,  with  parts  wisely 
coordinated  and  held  steadily  and  unmistakably  to  a  useful 
end,  it  requires  a  foreseeing  and  designing  cause.  For  a 
thought  and  plan  actualized  and  recorded  in  a  distinct 
structure,  organism,  and  function,  as  in  the  eye  for  sight, 
or  the  ear  for  hearing,  it  requires  a  Thinker  as  the  only 
sufficient  cause.  This  full  scope  of  the  principle,  there- 
fore, includes  final  cause,  or  design,  in  the  aggregate  causal 
action  necessary  for  the  rational  explanation  of  the  phe- 
nomena of  nature.  In  other  words,  efficient  and  final  causes 
act  together.  They  imply  each  other.  For  it  will  be 
seen  in  the  progress  of  this  evidence  that  many  things  in 
nature  are  capable  of  explanation  only  by  the  co-action  of 


THE   TELEOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  81 

intelligence  or  purpose  with  the  physical  forces  that  pro- 
duce them. 

The  relation  to  each  other,  claimed  for  these  two  kinds 
of  cause,  i.e.,  for  energy  and  design,  must  be  clearly 
settled  at  this  point.  For  it  has  often  been  overlooked, 
or  strangely  misconceived.  Sometimes  the  two  principles 
have  been  treated  as  inconsistent  and  contradictory.  They 
have  been  spoken  of  as  if  they  excluded  each  other.  But 
there  could  hardly  be  a  more  thorough  misconception. 
They  are  not  antagonistic.  On  the  contrary,  they  seek  and 
require  each  other.  Final  causes  demand  efficient  causes 
for  their  accomplishment.  Reciprocally,  efficient  causes 
appeal  to  final  causes,  or  useful  predetermined  ends^  for 
their  rational  justification.  The  working  of  forces  is  justi- 
fied only  by  the  ends  they  serve  in  the  universe.  Human 
experience,  every  day,  makes  the  harmony  of  these  two 
kinds  of  causes  absolutely  certain.  They  are  constantly 
found  acting  together,  as  the  special  purpose  of  the  de- 
sio-ner  guides  the  various  forces  which  he  employs  — 
which  in  such  relation  take  the  character  of  mecms  —  to 
the  predetermined  end. 

But  the  two  hold  distinct  and  different  relations  to  the 
aggregate  result,  the  one  supplying  the  productive  work, 
the  other  securing  the  intended  order  and  adaptation  in 
the  product,  the  one  furnishing  the  means,  the  other  coor- 
dinating the  means  to  the  end.  When  a  telescope,  for 
instance,  has  been  made,  it  is  the  result  of  both  efficient 
and  final  cause.  For  it  is  a  product,  not  only  of  the  me- 
chanical forces  that  wrought  it,  but  of  the  design  which, 
preconceiving  the  end  from  the  beginning,  controlled  the 
constructive  work  to  present  at  last  an  instrument  for 
scanning  the  starry  heavens.  The  discovery  of  efficient 
6 


82  N^ATUKAL   THEOLO(iY. 

causes  in  nature  is,  therefore,  no  argument  against  final 
causes.  At  this  point  atheistic  materialists  have  allowed 
themselves  to  be  deluded.  For  they  have  assumed  that  in 
simply  pointing  out  how  the  particular  effects  in  any  natu- 
ral phenomenon  result  from  some  ascertained  physical 
action,  they  have  excluded  final  cause,  or  made  it  inappli- 
cable. This  has  been  well  called  a  "  most  glaring  example 
of  the  fallacy  of  irrelevant  conclusion,  or  ignoratio  elen- 
chi?''  ^  Design  is  not  disproved  in  the  watch  by  showing 
every  movement  of  the  tools  and  property  of  the  metals 
with  which  it  has  been  made.  Every  end  requires  inecms, 
i.e.,  a  cause  fit  to  produce  the  effect.  To  discover  this 
cause  is  in  no  way  to  destroy  the  idea  of  the  end.  It  is, 
on  the  contrary,  to  exhibit  the  condition  sine  qua  non  for 
the  production  of  the  end.  Nothing,  therefore,  is  proved 
against  final  cause  in  nature  when  organic  effects  are  traced 
to  their  proximate  causes  and  determining  conditions.^ 
We  shall  have  frequent  occasion  to  apply  this  truth  in 
tracing  this  form  of  evidence. 

3.  The  alternative  to  fi}ial  cause  is  chance.  This  fact 
must  be  clearly  distinguished  and  remembered.  The  point 
to  be  settled  here  is  not  whether  really,  or  to  an  omniscient 
view,  there  is  such  a  thing  as  chance  in  the  world,  but  in 
what  sense  the  word  is  to  be  understood  when  used  in 
speaking  of  actual  events.  To  say  that  a  thing  has  come 
by  chance  is  no  denial  of  an  efficient  cause.  It  is  view^ed, 
not  as  without  cause,  but  without  design.  It  is  not  of 
chance  simply  by  its  cause  being  unknown.  The  cause  of 
many  events  is  inscrutable,  but  they  are  not  regarded  as 
fortuitous.     But  the  term  is  applied  to  what  has  not  been 

iDr.  McCosh:  Princeton  Revierv,  March,  1879. 
2  See  Janet's  Final  (Jauses^  pp.  18T-1JJ9, 


THE   TELEOLOGICAL   EVIDENCE.  83 

planned  or  intended.  When  a  die  is  thrown  the  face  pre- 
sented conies  as  the  result  of  sure  laws  of  force  and  mo- 
tion, but  because  not  controlled  b}^  an  intention  it  is  said 
to  be  by  chance.  Should  three  letters,  tossed  on  the  floor, 
fall  so  as  to  spell,  say  the  word  "cup,"  the  occurrence 
would  be  regarded  as  fortuitous,  because  unintended. 
There  is  in  such  cases  a  coincidence  of  efficient  causes, 
moving  independently,  issuing  on  a  result  not  predeter- 
mined. Two  travellers  journeying  to  different  points  may 
meet  where  their  ways  cross.  The  meeting  would  take 
place  by  chance,  i.e.,  not  without  cause,  but  without  de- 
sio-n.  This  kind  of  coincidence  is  chance  —  a  coincidence 
of  causes  in  an  event  not  foreseen  or  arranged.  How  in- 
capable this  very  uncertain  coincidence  is  to  produce  or 
preserve  order  and  useful  ends  must  not  be  forgotten  when 
we  come  to  scan  the  finely  adjusted  relations  and  wonder- 
ful organisms  of  nature. 

4.  We  view  the  validity  of  the  principle  of  final  cause 
as  restinf/  only  on  experience  and  induction.  Many  able 
thinkers  put  it  higher,  and  regard  it  as  ranking  with  a 
j)rio}'i  self-evident  and  universal  truths.  President  Porter, 
for  example,  has  ably  vindicated  its  right  to  be  looked 
upon  in  this  character:  "  We  assert  that  the  relation  of 
means  and  ends  is  assumed  a  priori  to  be  true  of  every 
event  and  being  in  the  universe,  and  that  the  mind  directs 
its  incpiiries  by,  and  rests  its  knowledge  upon,  this  as  an 
intuitive  principle."'  He  shows  how  it  is  p^resupposed  in 
the  whole  inductive  process,  and  underlies  all  scientific 
thought  and  work,  refusing  to  disappear  from  our  concep- 
tions of  even  those  parts  of  nature  where  it  seems  utterly  to 
hide  itself.     But  this  question  is  still  under  discussion,  and 

I  fluman  Intellect,  p.  594, 


84  NATURAL    THEOLOGY. 

serious  difficulties  are  pointed  out  against  this  view.  We 
are  reminded  of  the  fact  that  final  cause  has  not  actually  and 
always  asserted  itself  as  self-evident,  necessary,  and  univer- 
sal, with  the  absolute  resistlessness  with  which  the  law  of 
causality  does.  No  law  of  tJiougJit  bars  from  limiting  its 
application.  Occurrences  without  design  are  not  unthink- 
able. The  idea  of  design  is  called  forth,  not  with  an 
absolute  necessity,  but  only  in  the  contemplation  of  partic- 
ular features  or  parts  of  nature.  If  nature  presented  only 
physical  or  chemical  facts,  inorganic  and  general  masses, 
an  intelligence  that  should  contemplate  them  would  prob- 
ably be  satisfied  by  an  explanation  which  would  simply 
attach  each  phenomenon  to  its  anterior  cause,  without  ever 
raising  the  question  of  design.  It  seems  to  be  dependent 
on  tlie  nature  of  the  result  whether  a  final  cause  is  sug- 
gested to  the  observer  or  not.  It  is  only  because  there 
are  some  phenomena  which  physical  causes  alone  are 
incompetent  to  explain,  that  the  addition  of  final  cause 
becomes  a  necessity  of  thought.  But  this  at  once  limits 
the  necessary  evolution  of  the  idea  of  design,  and  dimin- 
ishes it  from  the  necessity  and  universality  of  the  law  of 
efficient  cause.  In  looking  on  the  eruption  of  a  volcano, 
or  the  irregular  and  confused  outline  and  form  of  mountain 
chains  and  gaps,  or  the  location  of  the  fragments  thrown 
by  a  dynamite  discharge,  we  are  compelled  to  think,  if  we 
think  at  all,  that  each  result,  however  accidental  it  may 
seem,  has  had  an  adequate  and  specific  efficient  cause,  but 
we  are  not  equally  obliged  to  believe  that  each  has  an 
intended  end  or  purpose.  "  Take  the  eruption  of  a  vol- 
cano," says  Janet,  "  each  stream  of  lava,  each  exhalation, 
each  noise,  each  flash  has  its  own  cause,  and  the  most 
passing  of  these  phenomena  could  be  determined  a  priori 


THE   TELEOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  85 

by  him  who  knew  accurately  all  the  causes  and  all  the 
conditions  which  brought  about  the  eruption;  but  to 
think  to  attribute  to  each  of  these  phenomena  in  partic- 
ular a  precise  end  is  absolutely  impossible.  For  what 
end  is  such  a  stone  thrown  to  the  right  rather  than  the 
left?  Why  such  an  emanation  rather  than  such  an- 
other? These  are  questions  which,  in  fact,  no  one  asks. 
One  might  cite  a  thousand  other  examples:  Why,  to  what 
end,  do  the  clouds  driven  by  the  wind  take  such  a  form 
rather  than  such  another?  Why,  to  what  end,  does  the 
malady  called  madness  produce  such  a  delusion  rather 
than  another  ?  To  what  end  has  one  monster  two  heads 
and  another  none  at  all  ?  There  are  a  thousand  such 
cases,  in  which  the  human  mind  seeks  causes  without 
concerning  itself  about  ends.  I  do  not  merely  say  that  it 
ignores  them,  I  say  that  it  does  not  think  of  them,  and  is 
not  forced  to  suppose  them;  while  as  to  the  causes,  even 
when  it  is  ignorant  of  them,  it  yet  knows  them  to  exist, 
and  it  believes  in  them  invincibly.  ...  If  there  are 
in  the  universe  a  great  number  of  phenomena  which  do 
not  suggest  in  any  manner  the  idea  of  an  end,  to  compen- 
sate for  this  there  are  others  which,  rightly  or  wrongly, 
call  forth  this  idea  imperiously  and  infallibly.  Such  are 
the  organs  of  living  beings,  and  above  all,  of  the  superior 
animals.  Why  this  difference  ?  What  more  is  there  in 
this  case  than  in  the  previous  one  ?  If  the  principle  of 
finality  were  universal  and  necessary,  like  the  principle 
of  causality,  would  we  not  apply  it  everywhere  like  the 
latter,  and  with  the  same  certainty  ?  There  are  none  of 
these  differences  as  regards  efficient  causes.  In  all  cases 
we  affirm  that  they  exist,  and  we  affirm  it  equally.  There 
are  no  phenomena  that  are  more  evidently  effects  than 


86  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

others.  We  know  the  cause  of  them,  or  do  not  know  it; 
but  known  or  unknown,  it  is;  and  it  is  not  more  probable 
in  this  case  than  in  that.  On  the  other  hand,  even  those 
who  affirm  that  there  is  final  cause  everywhere,  acknowl- 
edge that  it  is  more  manifested  in  the  animal  and  vegeta- 
ble kingdoms  than  in  the  mineral;  and  if  one  were  reduced 
to  the  latter  kingdom,  and  man  were  to  forget  himself,  the 
idea  of  final  cause  would  not,  perhaps,  present  itself  to 
the  mind."  ^ 

This  account  of  the  principle  is  not  to  be  taken  as  any 
denial  of  the  universal  prevalence  of  final  causation  in 
nature.  In  the  end  we  may  believe  in  such  a  prevalence. 
When  once,  through  analogy  and  induction,  the  principle 
has  been  recognized,  and  nature  is  read  with  the  open  eye 
of  theistic  vision,  the  conviction  will  probably  come  that 
the  teleological  law  holds  in  all  things  throughout  the  uni- 
verse. The  completed  induction  may  give  to  it  such  a 
certainty  and  necessity  as  to  become  regulative  for  the 
rational  interpretation  of  all  nature.  We  believe  that 
nothing  short  of  this  will  furnish  a  rational  view  or  con- 
ception of  the  world,  or  justify  the  effort  of  science  to  set 
forth  an  orderly  classification  of  its  phenomena.  This 
argument,  however,  does  not  assume  final  cause  to  be  a 
priori  or  self-evident.  It  looks  upon  it  simply  as  a  rea- 
soned truth,  revealed  in  the  facts  of  nature  and  thoroughly 
established  by  legitimate  evidences. 

5.  The  reasoning  employed  in  this  proof  is  analogical 
and  inductive.  It  proceeds  upon  the  indisputable  fact  of 
likeness  between  many  of  the  products  of  nature  and  the 
products  of  human  design.  It  is  by  no  means  claimed 
that  they  resemble   each   other   in  all  respects.      In  many 

1  Final  Causes,  pp.  6-8. 


THE   TELEOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  87 

features  they  greatly  differ.  They  are  unlike  as  to  the 
modes  of  production.  Between  the  mechanism  which 
produces  a  watch  and  the  growth  which  produces  a  tree 
there  is  a  complete  difference.  The  difference  is  some- 
titnes  thought  to  destroy  the  ground  of  analogical  reason- 
ing in  the  case.  The  world,  it  has  often  been  said,  cannot 
be  likened  to  Paley's  watch  or  any  other  sort  of  mechan- 
ism. Between  things  natural  and  things  which  men  make 
there  are  many  most  striking  contrasts.  But  still,  though 
the  structures  of  nature  are  so  different  from  those  of 
human  art  that  they  are  at  once  easily  distinguish- 
able, and  though  the  forces  and  processes  by  which  they 
are  formed  bear  no  resemblance  to  each  other,  they  have 
nevertheless  something  in  common,  and  that  common 
something  is  the  evident  adaptation  to  useful  ends.  This 
adaptation,  too,  is  simply  a  fact  in  both  cases.  This  is  a 
point  that  must  be  clearly  understood.  We  are  to  distin- 
guish between  the  subjective  design  and  the  objective 
adaptation.  The  one  is  a  mental  act  and  force,  the  other 
a  relation  of  parts  in  a  product.  Adaptation  is  not  some 
ideal  figment,  formed  somehow  in  our  minds,  and  then 
arbitrarily  transferred  and  imposed  on  nature,  but  is  a  per- 
ceived relation  in  and  among  objective  and  real  phenomena. 
The  adaptations  in  a  chronometer  are  simply  facts.  The 
adaptations,  likewise,  in  natural  organisms,  the  suitable- 
ness of  one  part  to  the  rest  and  of  all  to  the  uses  of  sen- 
tient existence,  to  whatever  cause  they  may  be  referred, 
or  however  accounted  for,  are  simply  facts.  The  two 
classes  of  productions,  by  human  art  and  by  nature's 
forces,  are  alike  in  this  great  significant  feature  —  in  the 
fact  of  adaptation.  In  the  case  of  structures  by  man,  we 
knoio  the  adaptations  to  be  the  result  of  a  cause  working 


88  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

from  the  beginning  to  the  predetermined  end,  and  we 
know  that  cause  to  be  an  intelligent  design.  The  similar 
effect,  namely,  adaptation,  is  by  inductive  analogy  referred 
to  a  similar  cause.  Mind,  intelligent  will,  is  the  only 
known  cause  of  such  effects,  and  we  are  thus  necessitated 
to  account  for  them,  if  we  attempt  to  account  for  them  at 
all,  by  such  a  reference.  It  is  indeed  objected  that  while 
this  process  is  valid  in  reference  to  the  products  of  man's 
industry,  because  we  here  actually  perceive  the  working 
agent,  it  is  not  valid  in  the  attempt  to  find  a  designer  for 
nature,  because  the  being  of  God,  as  the  assumed  agent, 
is  unknown.  But  the  demand  for  a  suitable  cause  is 
direct  and  immediate  from  the  observed  fact  of  adaptation, 
and  is  not  at  all  dependent  on  our  previous  knowledge  of 
the  agent  or  his  manner  of  working.  The  analogical  pro- 
cess moves  back  along  the  line  of  the  causal  law,  a^nd/rnds 
a  predetermining  agency  in  an  intelligent  purpose.  The 
movement  takes  us  to  an  agent.  When  once  we  have 
found  the  principle  of  final  cause  in  our  own  psychical 
experience,  and  have  become  acquainted  with  the  peculiar 
products  of  mental  causation,  we  are  furnished  with  the 
data  for  the  analogical  conclusion.  The  mind  necessarily 
recognizes  the  work  of  mind  wherever  it  stands  in  its 
presence.  A  thinking  agent  recognizes  the  products  of 
thought.  The  finding  of  adaptation  in  mechanism,  and 
belief  in  an  intelligent  cause  for  it,  do  not  depend  on  a 
previous  knowledge  of  the  particular  and  competent 
agent. 

The  action  of  final  cause,  moreover,  is  a  very  large 
phenomenon  on  the  earth.  It  is  not  simply  an  occasional 
or  a  feeble  agency.  In  human  industry  design  has  deter- 
mined, and  still  unceasingly  determines,  the  appearance 


THE   TELEOLOGTCAL   EVIDENCE.  89 

of  the  world  and  the  course  of  events.      It    changes  the 
face  of  the  continents  and  islands  of  the  sea,  builds  cities, 
binds  nations  together  by  railroads  and  telegraphs,  and 
produces  most  of  the  wonderful  effects  which  furnish  the 
immediate  conditions  of  human  comfort  and  enjoyment. 
Most  of  the  things  in  which  life  finds  elevation  and  glory 
are  unquestionably  from  the  action  of  final  cause  in  human 
activity.     It  must  be  noted  distinctly  that  by  using  the 
established  physical  forces  and  laws,  it  brings  about  ten 
thousands  of  results  which  would  never  occur  without  it. 
Through  science  and  invention  it  is  making  the  world  of 
to-day   wear    a    different  face  from  that  of    the  old  cen- 
turies.     Through  domestication    of    plants    and    animals, 
and  enforced   conditions    of    life,    it    regulates    even    the 
development  of  natural  phenomena.     The  fact  of  design, 
furnishing  analogy  for  the  explanation  of  adaptations,  is 
one  of  the  most  thoroughly  known  and  impressive  facts 
in  the  world.      Not  only  is  it    known  to    be  a    real    and 
actual  cause  of  them,  but  it  is  the  only  known  cause  of 
them.     To  suppose  them  to  be  possibly  due  to  something 
else,  would  be  to  abandon  legitimate  reasoning  and  resort 
to  gratuitous  conjecture.      It  would  be  to  refuse  a  known 
and  competent  cause  in  favor  of  an  unknown  possibility; 
to  reject  that  for  which  we  have  a  reason  in  favor  of  that 
for  which  we  have  none. 

There  is  another  consideration  which  thoroughly  justi- 
fies the  principle  of  analogy  here.  This  is  that  the 
human  activities  and  industries  which  exhibit  final  causes 
in  actual  operation,  themselves  belong  to  the  aggregate 
system  of  nature.  The  objection  that  discredits  the 
validity  of  the  reasoning  has  proceeded  mainly  on  the 
idea,  surreptitiously  fetched  in,  that  in  finding  final  cause 


90  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

in  the  adaptations  of  nature,  we  unwarrantably  take  a 
fact  and  explanation  from  one  realm  and  apply  it  to  quite 
another  and  opposite  realm.  An  impassable  gulf  is  in- 
serted between  man  and  nature.  We  are  told  that  we 
have  no  riglit,  simply  from  knowing  a  cause  of  adapta- 
tions in  intelligent  human  mechanics,  to  attribute  the 
like  cause  to  nature  which  shows  no  intelligence.  But 
the  objection  turns  to  nothing,  when  the  truth  is  remem- 
bered that  man  is  not  outside  of  nature  or  in  antithesis 
to  it.  Whatever  view  may  be  taken  of  him,  he  is  part  of 
nature,  the  summit  and  crown  of  it,  to  be  sure,  but  still 
embraced  and  held  in  it.  He  is  born,  and  grows,  and  is 
dependent  on  the  same  chemical  and  physical  laws  as  the 
animal  world  about  him.  He  is  subject  to  the  common 
laws  of  organic  life.  Even  liis  mental  life  is  at  present 
conditioned  in  the  healthy  action  of  a  complex  of  natural 
forces.  TJuis,  however  clearly  his  possession  of  reason 
may  suggest  to  faith  a  connection  with  a  higher  sphere, 
the  roots  of  his  being  undoubtedly  connect  him  with  the 
great  aggregate  of  nature.  And  it  is  to  be  specially 
noted  that  whatever  view  some  thinkers  may  take  of  man 
in  consideration  of  his  power  of  free  self-determination 
and  spiritual  destiny,  those  who  deny  final  cause  and  the 
existence  of  God  are  emphatic  in  the  complete  identifica- 
tion of  man  with  nature.  To  them  he  is  simply  a  natural 
phenomenon,  only  and  utterly  a  product  and  part  of 
nature.  Should  others  make  a  distinction  between  nat- 
ural and  human  action,  they  allow  none.  Final  cause  in 
human  art,  therefore,  furnishes  not  only  an  analogon  for 
final  cause  in  nature,  but  an  instance  of  it.  It  presents  a 
unique  but  actual  example,  of  wide  extent,  in  the  midst  of 
nature.     When,  therefore,  we  attribute  it  to  nature,  it  is 


THE   TELEOLOGI(;AL    EVIDENCE.  91 

no  gratuitous  transfer  of  what  belongs  to  one  realm  to 
another  and  distinct  realm,  but  the  simple  extension  of  a 
principle  which  nature  owns,  and  adopts  in  its  highest 
range.  Human  industry  is  confessedly  the  action  of  final 
cause,  and  human  industry  belongs  to  nature.  It  is  gro- 
tesquely absurd  when  men  who  see  in  our  race  nothing 
but  an  evolution  of  physical  forces,  but  who  effect  adap- 
tations by  design  every  day,  yet  deny  that  nature  exhib- 
its final  cause  or  predetermined  products. 

But   without  further  vindicating  here    the  validity  of 
the  conclusion  reached  by  the  application  of  analogy  and 
induction   in  this   argument,  and  thus  anticipating  what 
belongs  to  a  later    stage    of    this    discussion,   we    simply 
call    attention  to    the  fact    that  the    argument    proceeds 
upon  these  principles,  and   that  they  are  the  recognized 
and  accepted  principles  of  science  and  practical  life.     If 
analogy  and  induction  are  valid  for  truth  in  other  rela- 
tions, it  would  be  difficult  to  show  why  it  should  not  be 
in  this.     In  no  other  relation  in   all    the  wide    range    of 
human  search  after  truth,  are  the   facts  underlying  and 
impelling  the  inductive  process  and  warranting  its  suffi- 
ciency so  numerous  and  absolutely  certain.      If   there  is 
anything    of    which    men    are    absolutely  sure,  it    is    the 
reality  of  this  principle,  as  the  explanation  of  known  and 
intentionally  produced  adaptations.      As  the  products  of 
intelligent    will-force,    using    efficient    causes    or    natural 
laws  for  specific  and  useful  ends,  these  adaptations  mark 
the  whole  world  of  human  industry  and  art.     The  pecul- 
iar products  of   final    cause,  the    coordinations   that    are 
due  to  design  and  mark  it  to  intelligent  observation,  are 
the  most  familiar  and  unmistakable   things  of  daily  life. 
By  an  unquestionable  experience  design  has  been  given 


92  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

US  as  the  explanation  of  facts  of  adaptation,  and  the 
only  explanation.  We  thus  know  this  as  a  true,  jDroper, 
competent  cause  of  them,  and  we  know  of  no  other 
cause.  And  this  proof  proposes  to  show  that  nature 
abounds  with  adaptations,  clear  coordinations  of  physical 
forces  and  processes  to  predetermined  ends,  which  at 
once  and  directly  reveal  the  working  of  an  ordaining- 
intelligence.  They  are  recognized  as  the  unmistakable 
work  of  a  Thinker.  While  mind  is  known  as  the  actual 
cause  of  adaptations  to  useful  ends,  in  the  uniform  expe- 
rience of  the  race,  no  other  cause  whatever  is  known. 
We  have  no  knowledge  of  a  contrary  analogy,  no  exam- 
ple for  a  different  induction.  The  evidence  all  points  one 
way.  It  would  be  strange  logic  to  refuse  the  conclusion 
to  which  all  the  evidence  points  for  one  wholly  without 
evidence.  Because  analogy  may  fall  short  of  a  full 
demonstration,  shall  we  therefore  prefer  a  contrary  con- 
clusion not  only  utterly  destitute  of  proof,  but  at  war 
with  all  the  real  evidence  in  the  case? 

6.  This  proof  considers  the  phenomena  of  the  world  as 
effects,  i.e.,  as  "events."  not  as  something  self-existent  and 
eternal,  but  as  things  which  had  a  beginning,  which  once 
were  not,  but  have  come  to  be.  We  are  fully  aware  that 
it  has  been  objected  here  that  this  is  one  of  the  chief 
points  to  be  proved  in  order  to  justify  the  theistic  con- 
clusion. In  former  days,  at  least,  the  world  itself  was  by 
some  considered  as  self-existent  and  eternal.  But  while 
we  freely  consent  that  this  point  shall  be  held  open  to 
revision,  if  truth  require,  and  that  it  shall  have  to  be  sus- 
tained by  just  evidence,  we  are  fully  warranted  in  at  once 
conducting  the  argument  on  this  idea,  for  the  following 
reasons: 


THE   TELEOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  93 

First,  the  entire  evidence  of  the  cosmologlcal  argu- 
ment presents  the  world  as  an  effect  or  a  begun  existence. 
The  most  careful  and  scrutinizing  search  can  find  nothing 
in  the  material  universe  either  infinite  or  unconditioned. 
Limited  and  dependent  forces  and  contingent  forms  alone 
are  found  in  its  phenomena,  whether  viewed  in  the  aggre- 
gate or  in  its  parts.  The  teleological  argument  starts 
with  all  the  evidence  gained  in  the  cosmological  conclu- 
sion. 

Secondly,  the  special  and  particular  phenomena  con- 
sidered in  the  teleological  evidence  are  all  known  to  be 
caused  plienomena.  Indeed,  they  are  universally  con- 
ceded to  be  "events"  or  "effects"  in  the  fullest  sense  of 
the  term.  If  there  was  ever  a  time  when  this  could  have 
been  plausibly  questioned  or  denied,  science  has  now  put 
that  time  forever  in  the  past.  It  leaves  no  place  for  the 
old  notion  that  the  earth  is  eternal.  Science  finds  none  of 
its  phenomena  without  a  begirniing,  none  that  are  not  ef- 
fects. It  rigorously  demands  that,  without  exception,  they 
all  be  considered  as  held  under  the  law  of  causality.  It 
opens  the  geologic  records,  and  points  to  a  time  when  the 
plants  and  animals  that  now  are  were  not;  when  the  races 
they  belong  to  were  not.  It  goes  back  and  tells  us,  from 
evidences  that  allow  no  doubt,  how  and  where  the  hills  and 
mountains  that  seem  most  "everlasting"  were  made;  how 
the  rocks  were  built  from  the  detritus  of  earlier  rocks  and 
by  myriad  animalcules  working  in  the  seas,  and  how  the 
coal  beds  were  formed  of  the  forests.  It  is  disposed  even 
to  go  back  further  still  —  though  probably  only  in  a  bold 
and  brilliant  hypothesis  —  and  tell  us  how  the  earth,  sun, 
moon,  and  planets  were  all  formed  out  of  nebular  fire-mist. 
Seeing  the  overwhelming  evidence  that  all  earth-phenom- 


94  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

ena  are  not  eternal,  but  caused  or  originated,  science  is 
tlius,  in  all  its  working  theories,  now  fully  consenting  at 
least  to  this  point  of  theistic  doctrine,  that  there  was  a 
time  when  the  worlds  were  not.  It  joins  in  saj'ing  that 
they  had  a  beginning  and  are  effects.  And  these  effects 
or  "events"  form  the  whole  realm  which  the  teleological 
argument  investigates,  and  in  which  the  evidence  of  final 
cause  is  traced.  Even  the  notion  of  an  "eternal  series" 
fails  to  introduce  any  difficulty  in  the  conditions  of  this 
proof.  For.  by  very  conception  of  an  "eternal  series," 
every  event  of  the  series  becomes  an  effect.  And  if  this 
effect  exhibit  final  cause,  the  full  basis  for  the  teleological 
conclusion  is  there. 

Thirdly^  we  may  rightly  start  with  this  assumption,  be- 
cause in  the  evidence  which  it  gives  that  the  phenomena  are 
really  products  of  thoiu/ht,  this  argument  itself  furnishes 
the  invincible  proof  on  this  point.  It  proposes  to  show 
that  they  are  predetermined  products  or  existences,  the 
reason  of  whose  coordinations  and  adaptations  is  not  in  the 
things  themselves,  and,  therefore,  originated  phenomena, 
with  an  intelligent,  preordaining  mind  behind  them.  The 
teleological  evidence  which  makes  it  impossible  to  look 
on  the  world  and  its  events  as  merely  "the  eternal  stream 
of  a  planless  coming  and  going,"  and  compels  us  to  regard 
its  specific  and  wonderful  adaptations  as  due  to  intelligent 
design,  becomes  itself  the  direct  and  final  proof  on  this 
point.  What  is  at  the  beginning  taken  as  true,  on  the 
authority  of  observation  and  science,  is  in  the  end  con- 
firmed by  the  unique  facts  which  the  argument  itself  brings 
into  convincing  view. 

7.  Under  the  authority  and  guidance  of  these  princi- 
ples tv)o  distinct  points  are  to  be  proved.     First,  the  real- 


THE   TELEOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  95 

it  II  of  final  causes,  i.e.,  causes  actiug  for  ends,  in  nature; 
and  secondly,  that  these  are  to  be  referred  to  an  ordaining 
intelligence.  One  gives  us  the  great  fact,  the  other  the 
interpretation  of  it.  Superficial  thought  often  fails  to 
keep  these  two  things  distinct.  This  is,  indeed,  not  sur- 
prising, since  they  are  really  very  closely  allied.  But  they 
furnish  basis  for  different  classes  of  objections,  or  at  least 
for  objections  in  different  senses.  For  example,  Hume's 
objection,  repeated  by  J.  S.  Mill  and  others,  that  we  have 
no  right  to  assume  that  nature  acts  in  the  production  of 
her  works  as  man  does  in  the  production  of  his,  may  mean 
either  that  there  is  no  final  cause  at  all  in  nature  where 
there  seems  to  be,  but  only  consequences,  or  results,  or 
that  though  nature  presents  real  final  cause,  we  are  not 
obliged  to  credit  it,  as  we  do  in  human  industry,  to  intelli- 
gence or  self-conscious  will.  In  the  one  sense  the  objec- 
tion doubts,  or  denies,  the  reality  of  nature's  working  for 
the  sake  of  ends;  in  the  other  it  implies  that,  for  aught 
we  know,  there  may  be  some  other  cause  than  mind  for 
coordinated  adaptations.  It  may  be  that  in  our  common 
way  of  thinking  specifically  ordered  adaptations  and  an 
intelligent  designer  stand  as  necessary  correlates;  but 
since  there  are  those  who  assert  that  it,^s  an  unwarranted 
assumption  when  we  make  "mind,"  which  is,  indeed,  a 
cause  of  adaptations,  to  be  the  oidg  2^ossible  cause  for 
them,  it  becomes  necessary  to  keep  in  view  this  distinction 
between  the  fact  of  final  cause  and  the  interpretation  of 
the  fact.  Usually,  indeed,  atheists  deny  both  tiie  fact 
and  the  interpretation,  both  finality  '  and  intent ionality. 

1  The  word  -  finality,""  used  by  Paul  Janet  to  express  the  fact  of  predeter- 
mined ends  in  nature,  is  a  convenient  correlative  to  the  intelligent  purpose, 
called  ••  intentionality.''"  employed  to  express  the  nature  of  its  cause, 


96  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

For  the  sake  of  reaching  an  unassailable  conclusion,  both 
points  must  be  sustained  by  adequate  proof.  They  form 
the  several  premises  of  the  evidence,  as  is  shown  whenever 
the  teleological  argument  is  reduced  to  syllogistic  form,  as, 
for  instance: 

"  Whatever  exhibits  marks  of  design  had  an  intelligent  author; 
The  world  exhibits  marks  of  design; 
Therefore  the  world  had  an  intelligent  author." 

We  will,  therefore,  in  the  following  sections  present, 
first,  some  evidence  that  sustains  the  minor  premise,  or 
that  nature  exhibits  causes  acting  for  ends,  and  then  ex- 
amine the  legitimacy  of  the  interpretation  which  refers 
them  to  an  intelligent  author. 

SECTION   II. 

The  Reality  of  Fixal  Causes  in  Nature. 

The  first  and  leading  point  in  this  whole  argument  is 
in  the  question:  Does  nature  exhibit  causes  acting  for 
e7ids  ?  We  adopt  the  term  "  finality  "  to  designate  the 
precise  thing  inquired  after  in  this  question.  The  point, 
let  it  be  kept  in  mind,  is  not  whether  we  can  account 
for  nature's  pursuit  of  ends  except  by  referring  it  to 
mind  or  intelligent  purpose,  but  whether  there  are  ends 
or  objects  really  predetermined,  sought  and  accomplished 
by  nature  —  w^hether  there  is  anywhere  anything  for  the 
sake  of  which  (the  ro  oh  hv/.a  of  Aristotle)  nature's  proc- 
esses work  or  its  structures  are  produced.  It  ma}^,  in- 
deed, be  difficult  to  repress  or  keep  back  the  idea  of  inten- 
tionality,  or  intelligent  authorship,  where  we  find  finality 
or  causes  really  regulated  by  ends;  but  in  this  section,  and 
for  the  present,  this  is  held  in  abeyance,  and  the  inquiry 


THE   TELEOLOGICAL    EVIDEl^CE.  97 

is  simply  concerning  finality.  Whether  or  not  this  finality 
demands  the  recognition  of  mind  as  its  cause  is  a  question 
for  further  investigation. 

The  present  inquiry,  it  must  be  further  observed  and 
remembered,  is  not  at  all  a  matter  of  speculation  or  inter- 
pretation, but  simply  and  purely  a  question  of  fact.  And 
the  affirmation  we  make  is  that  finality,  or  the  action  of 
causes  for  ends,  is  a  fact,  a  fact  prevailingly  present  in 
the  constitution  and  processes  of  nature.  For  the  sake  of 
showing  and  illustrating  this,  we  will  gather  a  sufficient 
number  of  examples  from  the  various  departments  in 
which  nature  offers  itself  to  our  inspection,  in  the  follow- 
ing order:  1,  in  Organisms;  2,  in  Instinct;  3,  in  the  Gen- 
eral Order  of  the  Physical  World;  4,  in  the  Chemical 
Elements,  and  5,  in  Mind. 

ORGANISMS. 

1.  Begin  with  the  classic  example  of  the  e^e.  The 
question  is  :  Does  nature  act  for  an  end  in  the  structure  of 
this  organ  ?  Is  it  produced  by  chance  or  under  final 
cause?  Examine  it.  It  is  found  to  hav^e  all  the  parts 
and  adaptations  of  a  complete  optical  instrument,  adjusted 
according  to  the  laws  of  light  for  needed,  comfortable  and 
pleasurable  vision.  We  have,  first,  a  firm  case,  formed  of 
several  membranes,  suited  to  hold  all  the  parts,  upon 
which  are  fastened  the  cords  and  pulleys  of  its  skilful 
mounting  and  motion.  The  outer  of  these  membranes, 
called  the  sclerotic,  is  opaque  on  the  back  and  sides  of 
the  eye,  but  in  front  suddenly  becomes  transparent  as 
crystal,  and  so  forms  the  cornea  —  or,  rather,  it  terminates 
in  a  bevelled  edge  which  receives  the  cornea  as  a  watch- 
glass  is  received  by  the  grooves  in  its  case.  Within  this 
7 


98  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

is  a  second  coating,  which  becomes  thoroughly  opaque  in 
the  front,  forming  the  iris,  through  which  no  ray  of  light 
can  pass  except  by  the  opening  in  the  centre,  known  as 
the  pupil.  This  iris  is  a  self-adjusting  network,  which  no 
skill  of  man  can  equal,  enlarging  or  diminishing  the  pupil 
according  to  the  intensity  of  the  light,  and  always  in  a 
perfect  circle.  Within  the  case  are  the  different  humors, 
the  aqueous,  the  crystalline,  and  the  vitreous,  forming  to- 
gether a  compound  lens,  of  finest  refracting  power.  Pierc- 
ing the  double  coating  on  the  rear,  a  fine  thread  comes 
forth  from  the  brain,  and  spreads  itself  out  on  the  deep 
interior  of  the  eye  as  a  delicate  coating,  or  screen,  known 
as  the  retina,  or  optic  nerve  expansion,  upon  which  the 
light,  reflected  from  external  objects  and  refracted  through 
the  lenses,  falls,  producing  there  an  image  of  those  ob- 
jects, as  in  a  camera  obsciira.  The  formation  of  this 
image  is  essential  to  sight,  and  the  result  is  actually  ac- 
complished through  this  lengthened,  complex  and  elaborate 
combination  of  parts,  in  which  is  brought  together  a  great 
variety  of  materials,  of  the  exact  qualities  and  quantity 
needed,  and  in  position  clearly  adapted  to  this  single  end. 
But  more  than  this  must  be  considered.  This  instrument, 
so  exactly  optical  on  mechanical  principles,  is  put  into  a 
place  clearly  adapted  for  it.  A  cavity  is  provided  in  the 
bone,  with  grooves  and  perforations  for  the  necessary  ma- 
chinery of  motion.  The  eye  is  packed  in  soft  elastic  cush- 
ions, and  fastened  by  strings  and  pulleys,  to  give  it  ease, 
variety,  and  rapidity  of  motion.  A  delicate  fringe  of 
lashes,  that  never  needs  clipping,  helps  to  guard  it,  while 
not  obstructing  the  light.  Above  this  a  projecting  brow 
is  formed,  furnishing  additional  defence.  And  what  is 
most  suggestive  of  prearranged  plan  —  near  the  eye  is  a 


THE   TELEOLOGICAL    EVIDEN"CE.  99 

laboratory,  called  a  gland,  put  up  and  kept  running-,  to 
secrete  a  suitable  fluid  to  keep  the  whole  organ  moist  and 
comfortable,  with  a  pipe  laid  to  conduct  the  fluid  to  its 
place. 

Now  it  is  a  simple  matter  of  fact,  and  not  in  any  just 
sense  a  speculative  opinion,  that  the  eye  thus  described  is 
a  constructed  instrument,  whose  parts  are  adapted  to  a 
fixed,  definite,  and  consistently  pursued  end.  It  is  a  com- 
plex organ,  in  which  nature  is  plainly  and  actually  accom- 
plishing a  precise  and  determined  object.  We  are  not,  in 
this  statement,  interpreting  any  merely  subjective  notion 
of  our  own  into  the  eye,  but  simply  stating  what  it  is  as  a 
structured  part  of  nature.  In  it  organization  of  various 
materials  and  parts  into  an  instrument  of  vision,  is  simply 
a  fact.  It  is  a  complex  of  adaptations  to  an  actual  end  — 
an  end  to  which  all  the  efficient  causation  producing  the 
eye  is  unquestionably  correlated.  In  other  words,  it  is 
really  an  "organ."  If  it  is  not  this  it  is  no  eye  at  all,  the 
very  concept  of  the  eye  having  dropped  away.  We  press 
the  emphasis  on  this  point,  that  adaptation  of  the  struct- 
ure to  vision  is  purely  a  matter  of  fact,  as  truly  so  as  is 
the  existence  of  the  parts  which  compose  it.  Whatever 
explanation  may  be  given  of  it,  nature  is  here  actually 
pursuing  an  end  for  the  service  of  the  entire  animal  and 
human  worlds. 

Our  impression  of  this  truth  is  yet  further  deepened 
when  we  consider  more  specifically  such  things  as  these: 
(1)  That  vision  is  a  necessity  for  the  whole  purpose  and 
work  of  man  on  earth,  something  so  important  that  the 
failure  of  it  would  bar  off  the  race  from  all  the  high  life 
for  which  it  finds  its  lofty  faculties  to  be  suited.  (2)  That 
this  need,  being  developed  only  as  a  result  of  the  com- 


100  XATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

pleted  organization  of  man's  faculties  and  of  his  position, 
could  be  efficient  for  the  origination  of  the  eye  only  as  a 
final  cause.  (3)  That  in  the  eye  independeyit  things  the 
most  remote  from  each  other,  as  light  from  the  sun  and  the 
refractive  power  of  certain  humors,  are  made  to  concur  in 
a  definite  and  exact  result  suited  to  the  perceiving  mind. 
(4)  That  not  only  is  every  part  of  the  structure  complete  in 
itself,  but  it  is  accurately  and  fixedly  adapted  not  only  to 
every  other,  but  to  the  final  result,  the  absence  of  any  one 
part  being  destructive  of  the  use  of  the  whole.  (5)  That 
there  is  nothing  in  the  nature  of  the  elements  themselves 
found  to  compose  the  matter  of  the  eye,  considered  as  chem- 
ical constituents,  to  necessitate  or  account  for  their  running 
into  this  particular  structure  just  in  the  place  occupied  by 
this  organ.  And  (6)  that  this  instrument  in  every  in- 
stance of  the  millions  and  millions  of  human  being's  and 
animals,  is  prepared  and  made  ready  for  use  in  advance 
and  by  anticipation,  an  instrument  constructed  and  formed 
in  the  dark  for  the  time  of  light.  When  all  these  points 
are  considered  in  connection  with  the  extremely  artificial 
forms  and  features  of  the  organ,  already  mentioned,  such 
as  the  opaque  sclerotic  changed  to  transparenc}^  in  front, 
the  iris  with  its  pupil  for  admission  of  the  light,  the 
genuine  lenses,  the  outspread  optic  nerve,  the  adjusted 
pulleys  and  cords  for  motion,  and  the  factory  and  pipes 
for  the  moistening  fluid,  all  put  and  kept  together  for  the 
mind's  use,  it  is  impossible  rationally  to  doubt  that  we 
have  here  a  case  where  nature's  work  is  pursuing  and 
actually  accomplishing  a  distinct  and  definite  end.  We 
have  a  very  fact  of  finality  —  the  function  of  vision  pro- 
vided for  b}^  a  special  structure  or  instrument  arranged 
to  afford  it.     If  this  is  not  to  be  accepted  as  a  very  fact  of 


THE   TELEOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  101 

nature,  we  know  not  on  wliat  basis  science  is  justified  in 
claiming  any  of  its  data  as  facts. 

2.  The  ea7%  as  tiie  organ  of  hearing,  deserves  to  be 
mentioned  next  after  the  eye.  It  is  as  well  adapted  to  its 
purpose  as  is  the  organ  of  sight.  Though  not  quite  so 
complex  and  wonderful  as  the  eye,  it  consists  as  truly  of 
distinct  structures  and  adjusted  parts,  all  brought  into 
peculiar  and  specific  relations,  and  accurately  arranged 
for  giving  to  the  soul  communication  with  the  outer 
world.  The  external  part  is  an  admirable  formation  for 
collecting  the  vibrations  of  the  air  and  conducting  them 
inward.  If  this  is  not  its  object,  no  explanation  why  it 
exists  can  be  given.  The  continuous  channel,  the  bony 
rim  with  tympanum  stretched  over  it,  the  several  addi- 
tional bones  leading  further  inward,  arranged  like  a  well 
contrived  telephonic  line,  the  eustachian  tube  supplying 
air  for  the  inner  cavities,  all  together  exhibit  nature  as 
working  out  a  specific  and  well  defined  purpose.  The 
whole  organ  is  as  complete  an  adaptation  of  a  complex  of 
peculiarly  formed  parts  to  the  laws  of  sound  or  the  vibra- 
tory action  of  the  air,  and  turning  it  to  the  service  of  the 
mind,  as  is  the  eye  to  the  laws  of  light.  Can  anyone 
account  for  the  formation  of  the  ear,  an  organ  so  differ- 
entiated and  fixed  into  permanency  of  specific  structure, 
except  as  called  for  under  a  law  of  ends  in  nature's 
system?  Does  it  not  present  a  real  fact  of  structural 
adaptation  to  a  necessary  use  V 

3.  In  the  other  senses,  taste,  sutell,  and  touch,  we  find 
similar  provision  for  necessities  in  the  animal  economy. 
Each  one  presents  a  specific  organization  adjusted  to  a 
particular  function  serviceable  to  the  animal  life.  In  the 
case  of  taste  and  smell  there  is  a  localization  of  unique 


102  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

structure  in  which  special  provision  occurs,  furnishing"  a 
means  of  information  to  the  mind  concerning  the  outer 
world.  There  is  no  reason  whatever  to  think  that  it  is  an 
essential  property  of  matter  to  organize  itself  into  papilla? 
for  taste  or  smell,  since  each  occurs  only  on  a  particular 
spot  in  the  animal  surface.  Nor  are  these  organs,  or  the 
sense-perceptions  through  them,  so  essential  to  animal  life 
that  they  may  be  looked  upon  as  "necessary  conditions  of 
existence."  The  sense  of  touch,  indeed,  is  spread  over 
almost  the  entire  surface;  but  on  that  surface  it  neverthe- 
less appears  as  a  particular  nerve  structure,  a  specific  pro- 
vision, with  the  finest  actual  adaptation  to  the  wants  and 
welfare  of  the  whole  man.  It  forms  a  marvellous  adjust- 
ment to  all  the  great  purposes  or  activities  to  which  we 
find  our  aggregate  nature  calling  us  in  life.  If  we  leave 
the  idea  of  ends  out  of  view,  there  is  no  conceivable 
reason  why  matter  should  evolve,  just  where  it  would  be 
useful,  a  structure  so  unique  and  marvellously  suited  to 
serve  every  part  of  the  complex  bodily  organism. 

4.  The  bony  frameioork  of  man  and  of  all  animals 
presents  a  wonderfully  impressive  instance  of  nature's 
acting  for  ends.  This  is  true  in  every  aspect  in  which  it 
may  be  viewed.  Looked  at  simply  as  a  particular  sub- 
stance, concreted  in  the  process  of  growth,  it  is  remark- 
ably fitted  for  building  the  skeleton  or  frame  for  the  rest  of 
the  body.  Considered  as  so  framed  together,  the  purposive 
features  become  strikingly  apparent.  Each  bone  has  a 
special  structure,  as  to  length,  thickness,  figure,  curve,  or 
notch,  after  the  manner  of  a  specifically  prepared  piece. 
Each  one  bears  this  feature  as  plainly  as  do  the  plates 
and  bars  and  bolts  and  screws  which  the  machinist  forms 
to  make  an  engine  or  a  printing  press.     Most  artificially 


THE    TELEOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  103 

formed  joints  are  found  connecting  these  various  pieces  — 
about  two  hundred  and  eighteen  in  the  human  frame  — 
providing  for  the  kind  and  degree  of  motion  required 
everywhere  by  the  principles  of  both  utility  and  beauty. 
In  these  joints,  strong  ligaments,  skilfully  inserted,  tie  the 
bones  securely  together.  A  good  example  of  this  is  seen 
in  the  firm  yet  flexible  cord  in  the  hip  joint,  inserted  at 
one  end  in  the  head  of  the  ball  and  at  the  other  in  the  cup 
of  the  socket,  and  holding  them  securely  against  liability 
of  dislocation.  A  more  remarkable  illustration  is  found 
in  the  knee  joint,  where  two  ligaments  are  used  and  addi- 
tional security  is  gained  by  their  being  made  to  cross  each 
other.  This  ligamental  binding  is  no  new  method,  or  one 
developed  only  in  the  human  frame.  Fossil  evidence  from 
the  old  geological  formations  exhibits  instances,  even  in 
marine  life,  of  the  ball-and-socket  joint  of  exquisite  work- 
manship, with  the  ligament  to  unite  the  parts.  As  a  special 
method  of  attaining  this  end,  it  seems  to  have  originated 
as  soon  as  the  general  plan  of  animal  organization  called 
for  it,  and  it  has  continued  through  untold  ages  as  the 
permanent  form  of  contrivance  for  security  in  the  joint- 
ing. Its  origin  cannot  possibly  be  attributed  to  the  me- 
chanical action  of  the  parts,  as  that  action  manifestly 
tends  to  destroy  rather  than  create  such  ligaments.  It 
can  be  taken  as  a  "survival  of  the  fittest"  only  when 
credited  to  the  action  of  a  creative  and  controlling  Will. 
No  artificer  could  plan  and  put  together  on  mathemati- 
cal principles  a  more  distinctly  adapted  framework  than 
this  bony  structure  as  a  whole.  In  whatever  modifica- 
tions it  is  found  in  the  various  animal  races,  an  orderly 
method  holds  throughout,  a  method  which  not  only  pro- 
vides a  solid  firm  support  for  the  various   parts    of   the 


104  NATURAL  THEOLOGY. 

body,  but  protecting  covering  for  the  most  important 
organs,  such  as  the  brain,  the  heart,  the  lungs,  and  the 
digestive  apparatus,  and  furnishes  attachment  for  hun- 
dreds of  cords  that  are  to  give  it  motion,  while  it  presents 
perforations  here  and  there  for  the  passage  of  nerves, 
veins,  and  arteries.  The  question  is:  Does  this  frame- 
work present  a  real  adaptation  of  part  to  part  and  of  the 
whole  to  a  specific  end  in  the  animal  economy?  Is  it 
only  a  result  of  coincidence  in  the  blind  movement  of 
efficient  forces  not  at  all  designed  to  produce  this  result, 
or  are  the  parts  and  the  whole  what  they  are  for  the  sake 
of  the  organization  ?  It  seems  to  me  that  a  man  must 
throw  away  all  known  and  accepted  principles  of  sound 
judgment  or  rational  perception,  to  deny  the  fact  of  final- 
ity here. 

5.  The  muscles  exhibit  adaptation  unmistakably.  This 
is  apparent  whether  considered  as  to  their  intrinsic  struct- 
ure or  their  location  and  order  of  attachment.  Singly 
and  in  itself  each  muscle  bears  evident  marks  of  being 
made  for  an  end.  It  is  composed  of  fasciculi,  or  bundles 
of  fibres  of  variable  size.  These  are  inclosed  in  a  cellular 
membranous  investment  or  sheath.  Each  of  the  constit- 
uent fibres  consists  of  a  number  of  filaments.  Toward 
the  extremity  of  the  muscle  the  muscular  fibre  ceases  and 
the  cellular  structure  becomes  aggregated,  and  so  modi- 
fied as  to  constitute  tendons^  by  which  it  is  tied  to  the 
bone.  The  peculiar  characteristic  of  muscular  fibre  is 
contractility^  or  the  power  of  shortening  length  on  com- 
mand of  the  will  or  from  the  application  of  external  stim- 
uli. The  contraction  is  toward  the  middle  of  the  muscle. 
When  the  stimulus  is  withdrawn  the  muscle  is  again  re- 
laxed.    By  this  particular  property  it  is  at  once  suited  to 


THE   TELEOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  105 

the  service  of  producing  motion.  The  fact  of  adaptation 
in  a  saw  for  cutting  wood  is  not  plainer  or  more  real  than 
that  of  a  muscle  for  moving  the  bones  and  parts  of  the 
body. 

Taken  together,  and  considered  especially  as  to  their 
location  and  points  of  origin  and  insertion,  their  sub- 
serviency to  a  plan  and  use  is,  if  possible,  still  more 
evident.  The  disposition  and  point  of  attachment  are 
always  such  that  the  contraction  gives  the  direction  and 
degree  of  motion  needful  for  the  convenient  action  and 
use  of  every  part  and  of  the  entire  body.  For  instance, 
the  different  muscles  which  move  the  arm  are  so  tied  to 
the  three  chief  bones  of  its  skeleton,  and  continued  by 
the  tendons  extending  into  the  hand,  that  by  the  pull  of 
their  simple  contraction  they  furnish  all  the  motions 
required  for  the  activities,  industries,  and  arts  of  life. 

And  very  remarkable  it  certainly  is  that  the  muscle  is 
always  found  exactly  fitted  to  the  particular  kind  and 
degree  of  motion  to  which  the  special  joint  is  adapted. 
Where  the  bones  are  united  by  a  hinge  joint,  the  muscles 
are  arranged  only  for  the  motion  for  which  that  form  of 
joint  provides.  Where  there  is  a  ball-and-socket  joint, 
the  muscles  are  inserted  so  as  to  give  the  rotary  motion. 
There  are  more  than  five  hundred  muscles  in  the  human 
body;  and  everywhere,  in  their  size,  length,  and  places  of 
attachment,  the  principle  of  specific  adjustment,  not  only 
to  the  most  varied  particulars  of  the  bony  frame,  but 
to  the  necessities  of  every  other  part  of  the  bodily  or- 
ganization, is  most  cons})icuously  observable.  In  many 
places,  as,  for  example,  to  secure  the  needed  motion  of 
the  eye,  or  the  delicate  cunning  of  the  fingers,  anatomy 
exhibits  the  result  as  accomplished  by  what  strikes  the 


106  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

mind     as     a    thoroughly    studied,     complicated,    artistic 
contrivance. 

6.  The  digestive  system,  though  very  complex,  and 
in  some  respects  remote  from  inspection,  when  thorough- 
ly studied  and  understood  is  seen  to  be  an  impressive 
instance  in  which  nature  is  made  to  act  for  a  definite  end, 
beginning  a  needed  process  and  carrying  it  through  a 
long  series  of  provisions  to  its  completion  in  the  nourish- 
ment of  the  whole  body.  Let  us  briefly  follow  it  out. 
The  digestive  organs  are  the  mouth,  the  teeth,  the  sali- 
vary glands,  the  pharynx,  oesophagus,  stomach,  intestines, 
lacteals,  thoracic  duct,  liver,  and  the  pancreas. 

The  mouth,  with  the  teeth  and  salivary  glands,  is 
adapted  to  the  mastication  and  softening  of  foods.  It 
forms  a  needful  mill,  put  up  at  the  commencement  of  the 
process.  Through  the  pharynx  and  oesophagus  a  channel 
is  provided  for  passing  the  prepared  food  into  the  stom- 
ach. Special  muscles  are  furnished  to  perform  the  act  of 
swallowing,  and  the  food  and  drink  are  prevented  from 
entering  into  the  trachea  or  windpipe  by  a  valve-like 
arrangement  called  the  epiglottis.  The  stomach  into 
which  the  food  is  delivered  —  and  no  carrying  com- 
pany could  show  a  better  organization  for  delivery  — 
is  furnished  with  a  peculiar  fluid  called  the  gastric 
juice,  a  powerful  solvent  of  inimitable  kind,  secreted  by 
the  gastric  gland.  Harmless  to  the  coats  of  the  stomach, 
this  gastric  fluid  attacks  and  dissolves  all  the  various  sub- 
stances suitable  for  food.  Though  manufactured  regu- 
larly, through  all  the  years  of  life,  by  the  gastric  gland, 
no  human  chemistry  has  been  able  to  compound  or  pro- 
duce it.  Its  action  reduces  the  foods  to  a  pulpy  homo- 
geneous,   mass,    of    creamy    consistence,    called    chyme. 


THE   TELEOLOGICAL   EVIDENCE.  107 

From  the  stomach  the  2^1/lorus  forms  an  orifice  conducting 
the  chyme  into  the  duodemmi,  where,  from  the  liver  and 
pancreas,  bile  and  pancreatic  fluid  are  added,  changing 
the  chyme  into  chi/le  and  residuum.  In  the  duodenum 
and  other  parts  of  the  small  intestine  a  most  remarkable 
arrangement  is  found,  known  as  the  lacteals.  These  are 
very  minute  vessels  or  openings  in  the  mucous  surface  of 
the  intestine,  passing  thence  between  the  membranes  of 
the  mesentery  to  small  glands,  which  they  enter.  There 
are  several  ranges  of  these  glands.  The  first  range  col- 
lects many  of  the  small  vessels,  and  transmits  a  few 
larger  ones  to  a  second  range.  After  passing  through 
several  successive  ranges  of  these  glands  the  lacteals, 
diminished  in  number  but  increased  in  size,  proceed  to 
the  thoracic  duct  into  which  they  open.  As  the  chyle  is 
moved  over  the  mucous  surface  of  the  small  intestine  and 
comes  in  contact  with  these  lacteal  vessels,  it  is  imbibed 
or  taken  up  by  them  as  through  a  filter,  and  passed  on 
thence  into  the  thoracic  duct.  This  duct  commencing 
in  the  abdomen,  forms  a  continuous  channel,  passing 
upward  through  the  diaphragm  and  ascending  to  the  lower 
part  of  the  neck,  where  it  makes  a  sudden  turn  down- 
ward and  forward,  terminating  by  opening  into  a  large 
vein  which  enters  the  heart.  Carried  up  this  channel,  the 
ch3de  is  poured  into  and  mixed  with  the  old  blood  at  this 
point.  Valves  opening  in  the  direction  of  the  proper 
movement,  but  closing  in  the  opposite,  are  parts  of  the 
elaborate  arrangement  for  the  long  process, 

Looking  at  all  this,  and  remembering  the  need  to  be 
provided  for,  namely,  the  preparation  and  change  of  the 
proper  substances  for  the  nourishment  and  growth  of  the 
body,  the  adaptation  of  the  means  to  the  end  becomes  clear 


108  :^TATURAL  theology. 

and  certain.  We  see  a  complex  and  extended  system, 
composed  of  separate  and  independent  organs,  brought, 
by  special  structure  and  place,  into  concurrent  action,  and 
made  to  cooperate  in  a  result  to  which  the  first  step  looks 
as  plainly  as  the  last.  A  needful  thing  was  before  nature, 
and  nature  has  been  made  to  seek  and  accomplish  the 
needful  thing. 

7.  The  circulatory  organs  are  for  the  distribution  of 
the  blood  to  every  part  of  the  body.  They  are  tiie  heart, 
arteries,  veins,  and  capillaries.  These  are  so  connected  as 
to  form  a  continued  series,  with  functions  constituting  a 
complete  circle.  The  heart  stands  at  the  beginning,  and  is 
clearly  a  piece  of  nature's  mechanism  for  a  purpose.  It 
is  a  double  organ,  or  has  two  sides  called  the  right  and 
left.  Each  side  is  also  divided  into  two  parts.  It  is  com- 
posed of  peculiar  fibre,  with  strong  contractile  power,  the 
two  sides  and  the  two  cavities  of  each  side  working  in 
corresponding  action  under  the  impulse  of  a  special  nerve 
organization.  One  side  of  the  heart  is  so  arranged  as  to 
receive  the  mixture  of  old  blood  and  chyle  from  the  large 
vein  which  enters  there,  and  to  pass  it  through  the  lungs  ; 
the  other  to  take  it  and  force  it  again  into  the  body 
through  the  arteries,  for  the  nourishment  and  upbuilding 
of  the  system.  By  its  automatic  action,  the  provision  for 
which  is  so  strange  a  fact  of  its  muscular  and  nervous 
structure,  the  heart  is  a  pump  of  immense  force,  with 
pipes  and  valves  finely  constructed  and  connected.  It 
forms  a  conspicuous  instance  of  adaptation  —  an  organ 
put  together,  in  nature's  growth,  on  mechanical  princi- 
ples, to  effect  a  specific  and  unquestionable  end  in  the 
animal  economy. 

The  completion  of  the  circulatory  process  is  provided 


THE   TELEOLOGICAL   EVIDENCE.  109 

for  in  the  arteries,  capillaries,  and  veins.  The  arteries, 
for  carrying  the  blood  from  the  heart,  under  the  strong 
pressure  with  which  it  is  forced  into  them,  are  made  of 
strong  material  and  laid  deep  as  a  necessary  precaution 
for  safety,  while  the  veins  in  which  there  is  little  pressure 
are  weaker  and  less  guarded.  The  ca])illaries  constitute  a 
microscopic  network,  and  are  so  distributed  to  every  part 
of  the  body  as  to  make  it  impossible  to  insert  a  needle 
point  beneath  the  skin  without  wounding  some  of  them. 
They  unite  at  the  one  end  with  the  terminal  extremities 
of  the  arteries,  and  at  the  other  with  the  commencement 
of  the  veins,  establishing  thus  a  communication  between 
the  arteries  and  veins,  or  the  outward  and  returning  flow 
of  the  blood.  The  valves,  set  at  various  points  in  the 
veins  as  well  as  in  the  heart,  to  prevent  a  reflow  of  the 
blood,  are  remarkable  exhibitions  of  nature's  mechanics, 
and  so  clearly  exist  in  a  relation  of  means  to  a  specific 
end  that  they  disclosed  to  Harvey  the  great  law  of  the 
circulation  of  the  blood.  The  whole  circulatory  apparatus, 
consisting  thus  of  the  heart,  arteries,  and  veins,  constitutes 
a  structure  as  clearly  plaimed  for  carrying  the  blood  from 
the  heart,  distributing  it  to  every  part  of  the  body,  and 
returning  it  again  for  oxygenation,  mixed  with  the  fresh 
chyle,  as  is  the  system  of  pipes  plainied,  by  which  water  is 
not  only  conducted  into  an  engine  and  turned  into  power 
there,  but  conducted  off,  and,  after  condensation,  returned 
again  to  the  point  of  origin  to  repeat  the  round  of  service. 
8.  The  linujfi  bear  equal  testimony  that  nature  corre- 
latc^s  her  organ izatiotis  to  particular  ends.  Tiie  animal 
economy  being  in  other  respects  as  it  is,  the  aeration  of 
the  blood  is  a  needful  function.  The  organ  for  effecting 
this  is  formed  and  placed  in  immediate  connection  with 


110  JsATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

the  heart.  "The  lungs,  as  is  well  known,  consist  of  two 
large  organs,  on  either  side  of  the  chest,  called  the  left 
and  the  right  lungs.  The  right  lung  is  divided  into  three 
smaller  lungs,  called  lobes;  the  left  into  but  one  or  two. 
On  examining  any  of  these  lobes  it  will  be  found  to  be 
made  up  of  an  immense  number  of  small  membranous 
bags,  all  closely  packed  together.  These  bags,  called  cells, 
connect  by  means  of  the  bronchial  tubes  and  windpipe 
with  the  air  through  the  nose  and  mouth.  They  vary  in 
size,  but  on  an  average  are  about  y^^  of  an  inch  in 
diameter,  and  the  total  number  of  the  cells  in  the  lungs 
has  been  estimated  at  six  hundred  millions.  Their  walls 
are  exceedingly  thin,  and  the  cells  may  therefore  be  easily 
compressed.  The  whole  mass  of  the  lungs  is  also  exceed- 
ingly elastic,  and  by  the  action  of  a  system  of  muscles 
their  volume  is  alternately  increased  and  diminished  in 
the  process  of  respiration.  The  amount  of  air  which  is 
thus  drawn  into  the  cells  and  again  expelled  at  each 
inspiration  differs  in  different  individuals.  The  average 
quantity  in  the  ordinary  tranquil  respiration  of  an  adult  is 
about  a  pint;  but  in  a  full  respiration  it  may  be  as  much 
as  two  and  a  half  pints,  and  by  an  effort  the  lungs  may  be 
made  to  inhale  from  five  to  seven  pints.  As  the  average 
in  health  is  about  eighteen  inspirations  a  minute,  which 
corresponds  to  about  eighteen  pints  of  air  inlialed  and 
exhaled,  it  follows  that  three  thousand  gallons  of  air  pass 
through  the  lungs  of  an  adult  man  every  day."  ^  When  the 
blood,  freshl}^  charged  with  the  inflowing  chyle,  is  received 
from  the  large  vein  into  the  heart,  it  is  pumped  thence 
through  the  pulmonary  artery  into  the  lungs.  This  artery 
divides   and    branches,    all    through    the   lungs,    into   very 

1  Cooke's  Religion  and  Chemistry,  p.  107. 


THE   TELEOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  Ill 

small  capillary  tubes  which  ramify  on  the  surface  of  the 
air-cells.  In  these  capillaries,  formed  of  the  thinnest 
conceivable  membranes,  the  blood  is  brought  into  such 
close  relation  to  the  air  as  to  absorb  the  oxygen  needed  to 
prepare  it  for  its  great  function  of  nourishment.  Thus 
prepared,  it  is  returned  by  a  series  of  veins  to  the  left  side 
of  the  heart,  by  which  it  is  again  forced  through  the 
general  circulation  of  the  body.  The  peculiar  organization 
and  connections  of  the  lungs,  especially  their  connection 
with  the  heart  as  a  distinct  but  cooperating  organ,  form  a 
clear  and  unquestionable  adjustment  of  means  to  an  end. 
9.  The  ]:)rocess  of  nutrition,  accomplished  through  the 
digestive,  the  respiratory,  and  the  circulatory  organs,  de- 
serves to  be  briefly  recalled.  This  is  the  change  of  the 
elements  in  the  blood  into  the  various  substances  which 
compose  the  body.  Under  the  wonderful  chemistry  of 
animal  life  and  by  the  action  of  the  nutrient  arteries, 
that  is,  the  finest  capillaries,  these  elements  are  trans- 
formed at  every  point  into  precisely  what  is  there  needed 
for  repair  of  waste  and  for  growth.  The  matter  is  not 
transformed  and  spread  miscellaneously  and  indiscrimi- 
nately anywhere  and  everywhere  or  at  random,  but  de- 
posited in  exactest  quality  and  quantity  at  the  spot 
required  by  each  part  and  by  the  balance  and  beauty  of 
the  parts  and  of  the  whole.  Out  of  the  same  blood  is 
formed  at  one  place  bone,  at  another  muscular  fibre,  at 
another  fat,  at  another  nerve,  at  another  nail,  at  another 
hair,  in  the  precise  measure  and  modification  that  accord 
with  the  plan  of  each  organ  and  of  the  entire  body. 
Where  lime  is  wanted,  lime  is  carried  and  deposited. 
Where  silica  is  needed,  silica  is  carried  and  left.  Where 
iron,  carbon,  chlorine,  or  any  element  whatever  is  proper, 


112  IfATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

there  it  is  put.  So  the  constant  waste  is  repaired  or  the 
growth  is  carried  on  in  the  nicest  proportion  for  utility 
and  for  beauty.  Does  not  all  this  exhibit  nature's  proc- 
esses looking  to  specific  ends  and  accomplishing  them? 
Account  for  it  as  we  may,  the  process  or  work  of  forming 
and  building  up  the  body  goes  on,  the  differentiation  of 
the  parts  occurring  from  the  common  blood,  with  all  the 
nice  discrimination  of  means  for  ends  and  with  all  the 
steady  adherence  to  the  ideals  of  a  fixed  plan  that  the 
most  intelligent  and  forecasting  scientist  can  display  in 
the  best  productions  of  the  laboratory. 

10.  A  very  illustrative  organization  is  found  in  the 
ankle.  This  is  the  arrangement  binding  down  the  ten- 
dons there  by  a  ligament  passing  over  them.  The  foot  is 
placed  at  a  considerable  angle  with  the  leg.  As  a  conse- 
quence of  this,  the  flexible  tendons  passing  from  the  leg 
to  the  toes,  if  unsecured,  when  the  muscle  contracts, 
would  start  away  from  the  ankle.  But  they  are  pre- 
vented by  a  clearly  precautionary  arrangement.  A  strong 
ligament  is  stretched  across  the  instep,  tying  them  se- 
curely down.  Cut  the  ligament  and  the  tendons  will 
start  up.  It  is  a  plain  instance  of  a  bandage  to  effect  the 
specific  end  of  keeping  the  cords  in  place.  And  it  is  to 
be  observed  that  here,  as  in  many  other  structures,  there 
can  be  no  conceivable  tendency  in  the  part  itself  toward 
self-creation  or  continuance  in  existence.  The  function 
it  fulfils  would  tend  rather  to  the  destruction  and  disap- 
pearance of  the  part. 

11.  The  organs  for  the  perpetuation  of  the  various 
animal  species  exhibit  one  of  the  most  striking  and  incon- 
trovertible cases  of  which  we  know,  in  which  nature's 
organization  is  directed  to  a  predetermined  end.     These 


THE   TELEOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  113 

organs,  in  addition  to  the  directness  with  which  their  de- 
sign is  assured,  have  this  remarkable  peculiarity  that  the 
corresponding  parts  of  them  belong  to  different  indi- 
viduals. The  adaptation  includes  an  adjustment  of 
structural  provision  in  separate  beings.  This  provision 
made  for  the  perpetuation  of  the  human  and  the  animal 
races  allows  no  rational  explanation  without  the  admission 
of  final  cause.  Science  utterly  fails  to  eliminate  design 
from  the  structure  and  function  of  these  organs,  or  even 
to  describe  and  explain  their  parts  except  in  terms  that 
express  design,  purpose,  or  ends. 

2.  It  is  unnecessary  to  multiply  examples  of  finality, 
of  this  class.  They  may  be  seen  ever^'where.  The  few 
instances  given  represent  the  truth  for  the  whole  of 
organic  nature.  We  add  only  one  more  illustration,  in 
the  structure  of  birds.  And  we  simply  quote  here  from 
Prof.  Chadbourne:  "The  whole  bird  tribe  is  a  marvel  of 
special  adaptations.  The  whole  external  structure  which 
characterizes  birds  is  a  special  adaptation  to  the  external 
world;  and  when  we  consider  the  means  by  which  this 
perfect  relationship  is  secured,  we  are  delighted  by  the 
skill  manifested  ni  the  whole  plan,  and  the  perfection 
with  which  that  plan  is  carried  out.  Flight  is  secured  by 
the  most  skilful  mechanism  of  feathers,  and  the  accumu- 
lation of  muscle  around  the  shoulder  of  the  bird.  What 
can  be  more  perfect  in  its  mechanism  than  each  feather  of 
the  wing  —  its  hollow  elastic  shaft  securing  lightness  and 
strength  ?  Then  we  have  the  skilful  joining  of  all  the 
lines  of  the  web,  and  the  combination  of  barbs  and  hooks 
that  has  ever  challenged  the  admiration  of  men.  The 
position  of  all  the  feathers  is  such  that  by  expanding  the 
wing   they  cover  the  greatest   extent    possible,  with    no 


114  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

openings  between  them.  The  muscles  are  not  only  of 
great  strength,  but  they  are  so  arranged  that  the  wing 
strikes  the  air  at  the  required  angle  to  enable  the  bird  to 
rise  and  completely  control  its  motions.  And  then  ob- 
serve the  compactness  with  which  the  instrument  is  folded 
away  when  not  in  use.  The  great  expenditure  of  mus- 
cular force  is  provided  for  by  the  great  lung  capacity, 
the  whole  viscera  even  being  bathed  with  air.  The  bird 
by  instinct  trims  its  feathers,  when  the  web  has  been 
broken;  and  because  the  feathers  are  too  long,  and  not 
of  a  structure  like  hair,  to  receive  from  the  body  the  oil 
which  they  need  to  preserve  their  gloss,  nature  has  pro- 
vided a  never  failing  bottle  of  oil  on  the  back  of  the  bird 
which  instinct  has  taught  it  how  to  use."  ' 

13.  The  human  or  animal  organization  must  be  consid- 
ered as  a  u'/iole,  or  as  a  complex  of  various  organs  and 
parts.  All  these  separate  parts,  each  a  complete  organ- 
ism in  itself,  are  combined  in  action  and  function  into  a 
full  unity  and  individuality.  The  plan  that  is  seen  in 
each  part  thus  becomes  more  conspicuously  unquestion- 
able. The  body,  viewed  as  a  whole,  exhibits  such  a 
marvel  of  elaborate,  skilful,  and  accurate  contrivance, 
adapted  to  the  service  and  enjoyment  of  life,  as  to  call 
forth  the  admiration  of  thoughtful  men  in  all  ages. 
"The  human  body,"  said  Galen,  "is  a  perpetual  hymn 
to  the  praise  of  its  Maker."  The  point  to  be  here  spe- 
cially noted  is  that  finaHty,  or  parts  acting  for  ends,  is 
involved  in  the  very  concept  of  an  organized  being.  Dr. 
Porter  says,  with  evident  truth:  "An  organic  being,  or 
an  organism,  can  only  be  defined  as  a  being  of  which 
each  organ  acts  for  the  integrity  and  well-being  of  every 

I  lectures  on  ^"atvral  Theology,  p.  107. 


THE   TELEOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  115 

other  organ,  and  all  act  together  for  the  life  of  the  whole. 
More  abstractly  and  in  the  terms  of  the  relation  in  ques- 
tion [the  relation  of  final  cause],  an  organism  is  a  being 
in  which  each  part  and  the  whole  are  respectively  means 
and  end  for  one  another.  We  find  it,  in  fact,  to  be  true 
that  in  every  living  being,  whether  plant  or  animal,  the 
elements  or  organs  act  together  so  as  to  promote  the 
action  of  each  other  and  of  the  whole.  If  the  appro- 
priate function  of  each  organ  is  performed,  the  function 
of  eveiy  other  is  also  fulfilled,  and  when  all  together  are 
exerted  they  are  the  conditions  of  the  growth  and  devel- 
opment of  the  plant  or  animal.  In  the  animal  the  action 
of  the  lungs  is  necessary  to  that  of  the  heart,  and  the 
action  of  the  heart  to  that  of  the  lungs,  the  action  of 
both  to  the  action  of  the  stomach,  and  the  action  of  the 
stomach  to  both  of  these,  and  the  mutual  action  of  these 
and  the  remaining  organs  to  the  health  and  life  of  the 
body."  '  And  we  must  add  that  neither  the  separate 
parts  with  their  functions,  nor  the  united  organism  with 
its  action  can  be  rationally  accounted  for  by  efficient 
causation  alone,  nor  even  defined  by  its  terms.  The  ele- 
ments of  which  the  organism  is  composed  have  their  well 
ascertained  mechanical  and  chemical  properties,  and  when 
they  are  combined  in  non-living  or  inorganic  substances, 
they  exhibit  only  the  action  of  these  properties  and  their 
laws.  But  in  the  production  of  organisms  and  their  cor- 
relation to  the  special  interests  of  living  beings,  the 
causal  action  of  these  elements  is  clearly  transcended. 
Neither  the  tissues  nor  the  "cells"  to  which  physiology 
seeks  to  trace  organic  structures,  nor  the  chemical  powers 
and  laws  of  the  elements  in  themselves,   serve  at   all  to 

1  Tfie  Himian  Ititellect,  p.  597, 


116  I^ATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

explain  these  results,  except  as  presided  over  and  directed 
by  a  predetermining  and  correlating  thought.  The  rela- 
tion of  means  to  end  is  therefore  not  only  an  unquestion- 
able fact  in  organisms,  but  a  fact  insoluble  by  the  simple 
causal  force  of  the  known  properties  of  the  elements.' 

INSTINCT. 

To  understand  the  bearing  of  instinct  on  the  question 
of  finality  in  nature,  we  must  recall  what  instinct  is,  and 
its  relation  to  mere  organization  and  function  on  the  one 
hand,  and  to  intelligence  on  the  other. 

Instinct  may  properly  be  defined  to  be  an  effective 
blind  tendency  in  animals  toward  specific  kinds  of  action 
for  self-preservation  and  the  continuance  of  the  species, 
regulative  of  the  appetites  and  of  various  functional  capa- 
cities. Under  it  animals  act  without  experience  or  train- 
ing. They  pursue  a  course  of  wisdom  and  intelligence 
without  themselves  exercising  any  calculating  judgment, 
or  understanding  the  ends  to  be  accomplished  by  their 
action.  It  has  no  free  choice.  Operating  by  some  innate 
or  constitutional  impulse,  it  works,  in  like  conditions,  in 
the  same  manner  in  all  the  individuals  of  each  species.^ 
Its  action  is  uniform  in  the  same  circumstances.  If  any 
deviation  appears  to  occur,  the  change  or  modification  is 
provided  for  in  the  aggregate  law  of  instinct.  It  is  only 
diverted  by  circumstances,  the  deviation  being  itself  as 
truly  under  law  as  is  deviation  of  organism  from  ordinary 
form  in  the  same  species.  "In  proportion  as  instinct  pre- 
dominates, we  may  predict  with  certainty  the  action  of 
the    individual,    when    we    know   the    life-history    of    the 

1  For  an  able  discussion  of  this  point,  see  Janet's  Final  Causes,  Bk.  I,  Chap.  IV. 

2  Dr.  Wm.  B.  Carpenter:  MentaL  Physiology  (D.  Appleton  &  Co.),  p.  56, 


THE   TELEOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  11? 

species;  its  whole  aim  being  to  work  out  a  design  wliich 
is  formed  for  it,  not  by  it,  and  the  tendency  to  wiiich  is 
embodied,  as  it  were,  in  its  organization."  '  "An  animal 
is  already  all  that  it  is  through  its  instinct;  a  reason  foreign 
to  it,  the  reason  of  another,  has  already  made  every  provi- 
sion for  it,  while  man  uses  his  own  reason."  ^  Schopen- 
hauer savs:  "The  aim  toward  which  animals  work  so 
directly  in  the  acts  of  instinct,  as  if  it  were  a  known 
motive,  remains  entirely  unknown  to  them."  Darwin 
states  the  generally  accepted  idea  of  instinct:  "An  action, 
which  we  ourselves  should  require  experience  to  enable  us 
to  perform,  when  performed  by  an  animal,  more  especially 
by  a  very  young  one,  without  any  experience,  and  when 
performed  by  many  individuals  in  the  same  way,  without 
their  knowing  for  what  purpose  it  is  performed,  is  usually 
said  to  be  instinctive.''''  ^ 

The  relation  of  instinct  to  mere  structure  and  organic 
function  is  readily  and  clearly  distinguishable.  Organisms 
have  functions  which  they  fulfil  by  mere  force  of  the 
material  or  vital  organization.  This  order  of  action  is 
found  even  in  the  vegetable  kingdom.  It  is  one  of  the 
features  which  distinguish  the  vegetable  realm  from  the 
inorganic.  iVs  soon  as  nature  rises  into  the  organic  realm, 
in  plant  life,  we  find  specialized  structures  with  distinct 
functions.  Not  only  do  the  elements,  under  the  laws  of 
growth,  move  as  if  marshalled  under  an  ordaining  and 
directing  intelligence  into  the   formation   of   organs  and 

>  Dr.  Wm.  B.  Carpenter:  Mental  Physiologij  (D.  Appleton  &  Co.),  p.  57. 

2  Kant;  quoted  from  Krauth-Fleming:  Vocabiilanj  of  the  Philosophical 
Sciences,  p.  713. 

3  Origin  of  Species,  Chap.  VIII.  It  is  proper  to  say  that  Darwin  does  not  think 
these  characteristics  nnivcrsal.  and  believes  that  what  have  been  called  the 
instinctive  actions  of  the  inferior  animals  are  to  be  referred  to  experience  and 
reasoning.  His  view,  however,  has  not  been  well  sustained,  and  breaks  dowu 
when  applied  to  the  facts. 


118  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

organisms,  but  these  organs  are  found  fulfilling  certain 
needful  functions  for  the  perfection  of  the  plant  or  the 
perpetuation  of  the  species.  The  processes  which  take 
place  in  the  springing  corn  or  the  growing  oak  act  for  the 
completion  of  the  plant  or  tree  and  the  preparation  of 
seed  for  future  growths.  This  principle  of  organ  and 
function,  thus  begun  in  the  vegetable  kingdom,  is  con- 
tinued in  the  higher  range  of  animal  life/  It  is  seen  and 
illustrated  in  the  action  of  the  heart,  the  lungs,  the  secre- 
tory processes  of  the  glands,  and  in  all  reflex  nerve  motion. 
Instinct  is  something  superadded  to  this,  supplementing  it 
in  further  provision  for  the  animal's  own  needs  and  wel- 
fare and  the  continuance  of  the  ra'ce.  There  are  some 
animals  so  low  in  the  scale  of  being  that  they  appear  to 
possess  no  instinct  at  all,  or  very  little,  and  to  be  but 
slightly  organic  or  vitalized  masses.  Simple  function  ap- 
pears to  be  the  whole  of  their  life-activit}-  —  function  not 
much  above  that  in  the  organism  of  a  wheat  stalk  or  an 
apple  tree.  This  may  be  illustrated  in  the  case  of  a  clam 
or  an  oyster.  Apparently,  at  least,  it  has  no  more  conscious 
relation  to  its  3^oung  than  the  tree  has  to  its  seed.  "The 
production  of  its  young  is  simply  the  result  of  organic 
change,  the  law  of  its  growth,  like  the  budding  and  blos- 
soming of  the  tree.''^  The  only  indication  of  instinct 
about  it  appears  in  the  moving  or  closing  of  its  cell  for 
self-preservation.  Even  this  seems  merely  structural  and 
automatic.  But  instinct  is  something  different  and  higher 
than  such  directly  functional  action.  It  appears  where  in 
addition  to  this,  and  turning  the  possibilities  which  organs 
provide  for  into  appropriate  effect,  specific  impulse  and 

1  Chadbourne"?  Loicell  Lectures  on  Instinct,  1871,  pp.  49-96,  128-136. 
achadboiu-ne'^  Natural  Theology,  p.  94. 


THE    TELEOLOGICAL    EVIDEKCE.  119 

g-uidance  are  supplied  to  animals  both  for  the  care  of 
themselves  and  the  needs  of  their  offspring.  It  utilizes 
and  directs  the  aggregate  of  organic  functions  to  ulterior 
and  higher  ends.  "Instinct  supplements  structure  and 
functions,  putting  them  to  the  best  use,  making  a  higher 
type  of  life  possible  than  could  be  manifested  by  structure 
and  function  alone.  The  bee  has  a  structure  fitting  it  for 
gathering  honey,  and  the  rings  of  the  body  have  the 
function  of  secreting  wax.  Instinct  is  needed  to  impel 
the  bee  to  gather  the  honey  and  form  the  scales  of  wax 
into  the  honeycomb."  '  Besides  the  organs  and  their 
functions,  therefore,  there  is  an  added  impulse,  so  strong 
that  it  becomes  like  a  secret  wheel  in  a  system  of 
machinery,  which  is  so  important  that  without  it  the  entire 
machinery  would  fail. 

The  relation  of  instinct  to  animal  intelligence,  though 
in  many  respects  difficult  to  be  determined,  is  in  the  main 
easily  recognized.  Many  animals  seem  to  possess  what 
may  be  termed  intelligence.  It  is  by  this  that  they  enter 
into  conscious  relations  with  man,  understand  his  wishes, 
and  cooperate  with  his  aims.  Some  of  them  seem,  at  least 
in  a  measure,  to  comprehend  what  they  do  in  these  rela- 
tions, and  voluntarily  concur  in  human  plans  and  work. 
We  do  not  call  this  part  of  animal  capacity  instinct.  We 
call  it  "  animal  intelligence,"  whatever  that  may  be.  But 
the  term  "instinct"  properly  stands,  not  for  this  higher 
range  of  action  often  strikingly  illustrated  in  special  feats 
of  sagacity,  in  which  the  domestic  animals  understand 
and  serve  men,  but  the  inferior  grade  of  blind  movement 
supplementing  functional  activities,  in  which  they  act  on 
fixed  methods  for  self-preservation  and  the  perpetuation 
1  Chadbourne's  Natural  Theology^  p.  92. 


120  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

of  the  race.  "The  character  which,  above  all,  distin- 
guishes instinctive  actions,"  says  Milne-Edwards,  "  from 
those  which  may  be  called  intelligent  or  rational,  is  that 
they  are  not  the  result  of  imitation  and  experience;  that 
they  are  always  executed  in  the  same  manner,  and,  to  all 
appearance,  without  being  preceded  by  the  foresight 
either  of  their  result  or  of  their  utility.  Reason  supposes 
a  judgment  and  a  choice;  instinct,  on  the  contrary,  is  a 
blind  impulse  which  naturally  impels  the  animal  to  act  in 
a  determinate  manner;  its  effects  may  sometimes  be  modi- 
fied by  experience,  but  they  never  depend  on  it."  '  What- 
ever explanation  may  be  given  of  this  force,  whether  it 
shall  be  found  due  to  special  sensations  produced  by 
environment  or  to  reflex  action  analogous  to  that  which 
impels  organic  motion  itself,  or  to  some  other  cause,  it  is 
a  clearly  supplemental  provision  carrying  the  complex  of 
organic  functions  to  their  full  appropriate  results,  and 
securing,  through  a  non-intelligent  and  enforced  activity, 
an  intelligent  and  steady  coordination  of  wise  means  to 
special,  predetermined,  and  far-reaching  ends.  Blind 
powers  have  been  organized  to  act  as  if  they  had  pierced 
the  future  with  a  clear  foresight  of  what  would  be  needed, 
and  wnth  the  most  discriminating  choice  of  the  fitting  way 
to  accomplish  it.  The  very  powers  and  laws  of  nature, 
even  such  as  recent  science  alone  has  been  able  to  discover, 
have  been  taken  into  account  in  the  adaptive  processes 
through  which  instinct  pursues  its  blind  way  to  its  un- 
known but  appointed  result. 

A  glance  at  the  action  of  instinct  in  a  few  of  its  lead- 
ing forms  wdll  be  sufficient  to  explain  and  illustrate  its 
bearing  as  a  fact  of  clear  finality  in  nature. 

1  Milne -Edwards:  Zoologie,  §  319,  quoted  from  Janet's  Final  Causes. 


THE   TELEOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  121 

1.  Some  forms  of  it  regulate  the  choice  of  foods.  This 
is  one  of  the  lowest  and  simplest  acts  of  instinct,  joining 
closely  on  what  is  simply  organic  and  arising  out  of  it. 
Appetite,  being  properly  only  functional,  craves,  and 
instinct  directs  the  action  of  this  craving,  so  as  to  avoid 
what  would  be  injurious  and  select  what  is  nourishing. 
From  the  immense  diversity  of  materials  it  picks  out  with 
steady  accuracy  those  which  have  the  right  constituents, 
and  which  the  digestive  system  has  been  prepared  to  use, 
each  species  of  animals  having  its  own  foods,  and  its  young 
selecting  them  at  once.  Without  hint  from  the  chemist's 
analysis  of  secret  poisons,  or  instruction  of  any  kind, 
instinct  recognizes  them  and  rejects  them.  In  the  lowest 
animal  orders,  as  the  entozoa,  the  food  seems  to  be  simply 
absorbed.  But  in  the  higher  grades,  it  is  selected  under 
some  exercise  of  the  senses  and  perceptions.  If  it  be  said 
that  this  selection  is  simply  from  the  sense  of  smell,  each 
species  being  guided  by  what  is  pleasant  to  it,  it  is  3^et  to 
be  accounted  for  that  the  smell  has  been  so  precisely 
correlated  to  the  animal's  interests  and  safety,  since 
"there  is  no  necessary  relation  between  the  pleasure  of  an 
external  sense  and  the  needs  of  the  internal  organization."  * 

The  feeding  instinct  often  involves  correspondent 
action  in  several  individuals.  It  is  largely  so  among  birds. 
The  young  bird,  just  hatched,  raises  its  head  and  opens  its 
bill.  Its  hunger  impels  to  motion,  and  its  instinct  secures 
the  right  motion.  But  this  would  be  in  vain,  if  alone. 
The  instinct  of  the  mother  bird,  however,  responds  and 
brings  the  proper  food.  Without  this  correlation  of 
instincts  the  young  would  perish. 

When  the  eggs  of  the  bee  deposited  in  the  cells  are 

1  Janet's  Final  Causes,  p.  84. 


122  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

about  to  hatch,  the  worker-bees  eagerly  seek  for  that  par- 
ticular species  of  nourishment  on  which  the  larvae  are  to 
feed.  This  consists  of  pollen  with  a  proportion  of  honey 
and  water,  which  is  partly  digested  in  the  stomach  of  the 
bees,  and  made  to  vary  in  its  quality  according  to  the  age 
of  the  young.  As  soon  as  the  eggs  are  hatched,  the  bees 
feed  the  larvae  with  great  assiduity  with  this  prepared  chyle. 
When,  from  any  cause,  there  has  been  a  failure  in  the  pro- 
duction of  young  queens,  and  it  becomes  necessary  to  raise 
a  queen,  the  worker-bees,  having  placed  eggs,  or  larvae  not 
yet  three  days  old,  in  enlarged  cells,  called  "  royal  cells," 
supply  these  cells  with  a  peculiar  kind  of  food  which 
appears  to  be  more  stimulating  than  that  of  ordinary  bees. 
This  is  furnished  to  the  royal  larva?  in  greater  quantities 
than  can  be  consumed,  so  that  a  portion  always  remains 
behind  in  the  cell  after  transformation.  By  this  kind  of 
food,  in  the  enlarged  cells,  the  larvae  are  developed  into 
queen  bees.'  Dr.  Carpenter  well  says:  "This  last  action 
is  one  which  it  is  scarcely  possible  that  either  theory  or 
experience  could  lead  the  bees  to  perform;  for  not  the 
most  ingenious  reasoning  could  have  anticipated  the  fact 
that  by  supplying  a  worker-larva  with  food  of  a  different 
quality,  and  enlarging  the  cell  around  it,  a  change  so 
remarkable  should  be  produced  in  its  structure,  capacities, 
and  instincts;  and  the  circumstances  of  the  case  seem  no 
less  to  forbid  the  notion  that  the  bees  owe  a  knowledge  of 
the  process  to  experimental  researches  carried  on  either 
by  themselves  or  by  their  ancestors,  for  the  purpose  of 
securing  an  artificial  supply  of  queens  when  the  natural 
supply  fails.  That  recourse  is  uniformly  had  to  it  when- 
ever   the   case   requires,   has    been    repeatedly   shown    by 

1  Hunter:  Art.  on  "Bees"  in  Encydopcedia  Bniannica,  Ninth  Edition. 


THE   TELEOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  123 

experiment,  the  removal  of  tlie  parent  queen  and  of  the 
roval  larvae  from  tlie  hive  being  always  followed  by  the 
manufacture,  so  to  speak,  of  worker-larva^  into  new 
queens.  The  irrationality  of  the  impulse  which  prompts 
the  bees  to  this  action  is  evidenced  by  its  occasional 
performance  under  circumstances  which,  if  they  could 
reason,  would  have  shown  them  that  it  must  be  ineffective. 
A  case  has  been  recorded  in  which  a  queen,  having  only 
laid  drone  or  male  eggs,  was  stung  to  death  by  the 
workers,  who  cast  her  body  out  of  the  hive;  but  being 
thus  left  without  a  queen,  and  no  royal  larvji?  being  in 
process  of  development  to  replace  lier,  the  workers  actually 
tried  to  obtain  a  queen  by  treating  drone  larvj^  in  the 
usual  manner  —  of  course  without  effect."  ' 

'Z.  Some  instincts  are  organized  to  the  preparation 
and  storage  of  food.  This  is  rendered  needful  by  the 
chano-e  of  seasons.     The  action  is  illustrated  in  the  well 

o 

known  habits  of  bees,  building  suitable  vessels  and  col- 
lecting and  storing  away  honey  by  industrious  anticipa- 
tive  labor.  It  is  seen  in  tlie  case  of  squirrels  which 
gather  nuts  of  various  kinds,  and  make  use  of  holjow 
trees  or  other  available  places  as  magazines.  They  some- 
times make  deposits  at  different  places,  which  they  are 
usually  able  afterward  to  find  even  in  spite  of  the  fall  of 
snows.  Various  animals  gather  the  ripe  fruits  of  the 
earth  and  lay  them  up  for  food.  A  species  of  harvesting- 
is  often  practised.  The  Alpine  hare  of  Mongolia  is  said  to 
lay  in  a  store  of  hay  for  winter  use,  collecting  it  at  the 
end  of  summer,  and  stacking  it,  after  being  dried,  at  the 
entrance  of  its  home.  This  serves  for  its  couch  under 
ground,  and  for  food  till  the  return  of  spring.     There  are 

1  Mental  Physiology,  p.  00. 


124  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

certain  leaf-cutting  ants  which  dry  the  collected  leaves 
before  taking-  them  into  their  houses.  Some  ants  harvest 
various  seeds  and  store  them  away.'  "The  Siberian  ro- 
dent, lagomys  jyica,  gathers  autumn  grass,  cutting,  dry- 
ing, and  putting  it  away  like  farmers  gathering  hay."' 
Thus  these,  and  many  other  species  of  animals,  incapable 
of  consciously  foreseeing  the  need,  yet  provide  for  it  in  a 
course  of  action  wisely,  accurately,  and  uniformly  ad- 
justed to  the  ends. 

3.  Some  instincts  are  adjusted  to  building,  for  the 
sake  of  both  the  individual  and  the  species.  "  The  most 
remarkable  examples  of  instinctive  action  that  the  entire 
animal  kingdom  can  furnish  are  presented  in  the  opera- 
tions of  bees,  wasps,  ants,  and  other  social  insects  which 
construct  habitations  for  themselves  upon  a  plan  which 
the  most  enlightened  human  intelligence,  working  accord- 
ing to  most  refined  geometrical  principles,  could  not  sur- 
pass; but  which  yet  do  so  without  education  communi- 
cated by  their  parents  or  progressive  attempts  of  their 
own,  and  with  no  trace  of  hesitation,  confusion,  or  inter- 
ruption, the  several  individuals  of  a  community  all  labor- 
ing effectively  to  one  common  end,  because  their  instinc- 
tive or  consensual  impulses  are  the  same."  ^ 

The  building  operations  of  bees  have  been  to  all  ages 
a  wonder  of  blind  impulse  doing  the  work  of  knowledge 
and  wisdom.  Admiration  never  ceases  at  the  regularity 
and  accuracy  with  which  their  cells  have  been  con- 
structed to  afford  from  the  materials  the  greatest  space 
for  each  cell,  and  admit  of  their  being  joined  together  on 
the  same  plane  without  leaving  interstices.     The  mathe- 

1 W.  Lander  I-indsay:  Mind  in  the  Lower  Animals,  Vol.  I,  pp.  370,  371. 

2Janet's  Final  Causes,  p.  85. 

3Dr.  W,  B.  Carpenter;  Mental  Physiology,  p.  57. 


THE   TELEOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  125 

matical  determination  of  the  order  for  the  construction  ful- 
fillino'  the  necessary  conditions,  though  difficult,  has  often 
been  made.     Mr.   Hunter,  one  of  the  highest  authorities 
on  the  subject,  tells  us:   "  Reaumer   proposed  to  Konig, 
pupil  of  the  celebrated  Bernouilli,  and  an  expert  analyst, 
the  solution  of  the  problem  :     To  find  the  construction  of 
a  hexagonal  prism  terminated  by  a  pyramid  composed  of 
three  equal  and  similar  rhombs  (and  the  whole  of  given 
capacity),  such  that  the  solid  may  be  made  with  the  least 
quantity  of  materials  —  which  involved  the  determination 
of  the  angles  of  the  rhombs  that  should  cut  the  hexago- 
nal prism  so  as  to  form  with  it  the  figure  of  the  least  pos- 
sible surface.     Maraldi  had  previously  measured  the  angles 
of  the  rhombus,  and  found  them   to  be  109°  28'  and  70° 
32',  respectively.      But  Konig  was  not  aware  of  this  until 
after  he   had  solved  the   problem,  and   assigned   109°  26' 
and  70°  34'  as  the  angles.     The  3Ieniolrs  of  the  Acadeniy 
of  Science  for  1712,  containing  Maraldi's  paper,  was  then 
sent  to  him,  and  Konig  was  equally  surprised  and  pleased 
to  find  how  nearly  the   actual  measurement  agreed  with 
the  result  of  his  own  investigation.     The  measurement  of 
Maraldi  is  correct,  and  the  bees  have,  with  rigorous  accu- 
racy, solved  the  problem,  for  the  error  turns  out  to   be  in 
Konig's    solution.      The    construction    of    cells,    then,    is 
demonstrated  to  be  such  that  no  other  that  could  be  con- 
ceived would  take  so  little  material  and  labor  to  afford  tlie 
same  room.      Confirmatory  solutions  have  been  worked  out 
by  other  mathematicians.     But  a  more  essential  advantage 
than  even  the  economy  of  wax  results  from  this  structure, 
namely,  that  tiie  whole  fabric   has  much  greater  strength 
than  if  it  were  composed  of  planes  at  right  angles  to  one 
another;  and  when  we  consider  the  weight  they  have  to 


126  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

support  when  stored  with  honey,  pollen,  and  the  young 
brood,  besides  that  of  the  bees  themselves,  it  is  evident 
that  strength  is  a  material  requisite  in  the  work.  It 
has  often  been  a  subject  of  wonder  how  such  diminutive 
insects  could  have  adopted  and  adhered  to  so  regular  a 
plan  of  architecture,  and  what  principles  can  actuate  so 
great  a  multitude  to  cooperate,  by  the  most  effectual  and 
systematic  mode,  in  its  completion.  Buifon  attempted  to 
explain  the  hexagonal  form  by  the  uniform  pressure  of  a 
great  number  of  bees,  all  working  at  the  same  time, 
equally  exerted  in  all  directions  in  a  limited  space.  But 
his  supposition  is  confuted  by  its  being  directly  at  variance 
with  the  actual  process  emploj^ed  by  the  insects.  It  might 
be  supposed  that  bees  had  been  provided  by  nature  with 
instruments  for  building,  of  a  form  somewhat  analogous 
to  the  angles  of  the  cells;  but  in  no  part,  either  of  the 
teeth,  antenna?,  or  feet,  can  any  such  correspondence  be 
traced.  Their  shape  in  no  respect  answers  to  that  of  the 
rhombs  which  are  constructed  by  their  means,  any  more 
than  the  chisel  of  the  sculptor  resembles  the  statue  which 
it  has  carved.  The  shape  of  the  head  is,  indeed,  triangu- 
lar, but  its  three  angles  are  acute,  and  are  different  from 
that  of  the  planes  of  the  cells.  The  form  of  the  plates  of 
wax,  as  they  are  moulded  in  the  pouches  in  which  this  sub- 
stance is  secreted,  is  an  irregular  pentagon,  in  no  respects 
affording  a  model  for  any  of  the  parts  which  compose  the 
honeycomb."  ^ 

Everyone  is  familiar  with  the  nest-building  of  birds. 
Each  species  builds  in  its  own  way,  and  the  skilled  or- 
nithologist knows  the  bird  by  the  nest.  The  bird  that 
never  saw  a   nest  will   construct  one  as   all  its  tribe  has* 

1  Art.  "  Bees?,"  Encyclopceclia  Britannica, 


THE   TELEOI.OGICAL    EVIDENCE.  127 

done  before  it,  selecting  the  same  materials,  if  accessible, 
and  putting  tliem  together  in  the  same  way.  That  it  acts 
without  deliberation  and  choice  is  evident  from  the  fact 
that  it  acts  with  a  uniformity  which  presents  no  more  de- 
viation than  the  same  species  of  trees  does  in  the  arrange- 
ment of  leaves  or  the  form  of  blossom.  That  the  physio- 
logical condition  preceding  this  action  should  set  the  bird, 
and  all  kinds  of  birds,  to  the  particular  work  of  construct- 
ing nests,  evidently  requires  some  directive  force  supple- 
mental to  mere  function,  and  the  uniformities  Avith  which 
this  works  preclude  the  idea  that  each  one  is  acting  from 
an  intelligent  choice  of  either  object  or  method.  A  hun- 
dred different  species,  of  the  same  size,  and  surrounded  by 
the  same  materials,  and  for  which  we  might  suppose  the  same 
sort  of  nest  would  answer,  will  build  a  hundred  different 
kinds  of  nests;  but  a  thousand  birds  of  the  same  species, 
though  widely  separated,  without  instruction,  some  young, 
some  old,  will  build  exactly  alike.  The  old  show  no  more 
skill  than  the  young;  the  young  show  no  new  ideas  or  in- 
dependent methods.  This  uniformity  within  the  limits  of 
each  species  is  best  for  the  members  of  it.  The  varia- 
tions, also,  which  mark  the  building  of  the  different  spe- 
cies, are  found  to  be  accurately  adapted  to  the  place  and 
needs  of  each.  Though  the  impulse  works  without  com- 
prehending its  reasons,  it  works  with  the  directive  force 
of  a  wise  and  discriminating  counsel.  He  who  does  not 
recoo-nize  tlie  intelligfence  that  rules  it  can  scarcely  himself 
be  intelligent. 

This  constructive  instinct  is  a  large  characteristic  in  the 
animal  world.  It  appears  wherever  we  look.  The  ants 
arrange  their  many-chambered  and  curious  homes.  The 
beaver  constructs  his  strong  dam,  and  builds  his  village  of 


128  N"ATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

houses.  The  hornet  builds  its  nest.  The  silk  worm  weaves 
its  cocoon.  The  common  caterpillar  fills  the  forks  of  trees 
with  hammocks.  The  spider  beautifies  the  fields  and 
fences  with  the  entrance  network  of  its  dwellings.  Ani- 
mal life  is  everywhere  exhibiting  the  activity  of  this  adapt- 
ive process. 

4.  Many  of  the  most  wonderful  instincts  are  for  the 
C07itmuance  of  the  species.  Some  of  these  are  so  start- 
lingly  peculiar  as  to  become  impressive  proofs  of  a  distinct 
correlation  of  complex  powers  to  specific  ends  —  ends  which 
lie  outside  of  the  common  and  necessary  action  of  mere 
matter  and  life,  and  utterly  beyond  the  reach  of  the  ani- 
mal's own  knowledge  and  planning.  This  is  illustrated  in 
the  building  and  feeding  methods  of  the  bees,  already 
mentioned,  and  especially  in  the  strange  but  effective  proc- 
ess which  they  pursue  in  developing  the  queens.  The 
nidification  of  birds  is  but  the  beginning  of  the  activity 
which  the  parental  relation  involves.  The  bird  sits  for 
weeks  upon  the  eggs  to  hatch  them  —  a  service  which, 
however  plainly  it  is  a  means  to  an  end,  breaks  abruptly 
across  its  usual  habits,  and  forms  a  sort  of  specially 
inserted  section  in  its  life.  x\fter  hatching,  this  same  in- 
stinct not  only  defends  the  brood,  by  acts  admirably 
adapted  to  the  object,  but  selects  the  proper  food,  and 
puts  it  into  the  mouth  of  the  young.  This  order  of  things 
is  pursued  even  when  the  parent  had  itself  been  artifi- 
cially hatched  and  reared,  and  had  no  experience  by  which 
to  learn. 

Many  varieties  of  insects  are  found  depositing  their 
eggs  with  the  strictest  regard  to  the  presence  of  the  food 
required  by  the  young.  This  is  attended  with  peculiar- 
ities which  show  that  they  do  not  understand  the  bearings 


THE    TELEOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  129 

of  their  action.  The  prospective  adaptation  not  only 
crosses  the  chasm  between  the  annual  generations,  hut 
connects  two  states  which  have  scarcely  anything  in  com- 
mon. The  butterfly  anticipates  and  provides  for  the  food, 
not  such  as  itself  uses  and  enjoys,  but  such  as  the  newly 
hatched  larvre  will  need.  "The  tent  moth  lays  her  eggs 
upon  the  apple  twig,  closely  packed  and  varnished  to  pro- 
tect them  till  tlie  warmth  of  spring  wakes  the  young  to 
life,  when  the  new  leaf  is  ready  for  their  food.  While 
forests  of  trees  invite  her  by  their  slender  twigs,  on  no 
tree  does  s^ie  put  an  egg  but  on  the  kind  on  which  the 
larvae  may  feed."  "  The  ^:?o??^/)^7e5  at  full  age  live  on 
flowers,  but  their  larvae  are  carnivorous,  and  their  mothers 
always  provide  for  their  nourishment  by  placing  beside 
their  eggs,  in  a  nest  prepared  for  the  purpose,  the  bodies 
of  some  spiders  or  caterpillars." 

Mr.  Mivart  mentions  a  certain  wasp-like  animal  that, 
by  stinging  spiders  in  the  particular  part  of  the  cephalo- 
thorax  which  contains  the  principal  nervous  centre,  para- 
lyzes them  without  killing  them,  and  in  this  condition 
stores  them  up  to  serve  as  food  when  the  larvae  quit  the 
egg.  The  mystery  of  the  instinct  is  heightened  by  its 
leading  the  insect  to  sting  the  spider  in  precisely  the 
right  spot  to  produce  the  particular  results  required. 

The  unique  fact  of  periodic  migration  is  at  least  in 
some  degree  related  to  this  purpose.  Various  birds  make 
their  way  to  the  same  nesting  localities  year  after  year 
over  thousands  of  miles  of  land  and  sea,  by  day  and  by 
night.  A  common  impulse  is  upon  them,  and  hence  they 
go  in  flocks,  young  and  old  alike.  The  impulse  acts  with 
the  regularity  of  the  budding  of  trees  or  the  blooming  of 
flowers.      "Many   fishes    make    long    journeys    to    deposit 


130  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

their  eggs  in  a  place  suitable  for  their  3^oung.  The 
parent  returns  to  the  ocean,  and  the  young  fish  when 
hatched  and  grown  to  proper  size  journeys  to  the  great 
deep  as  well  as  if  its  parent  had  remained  to  act  as  guide. 
It  is  led  to  its  right  place  as  by  a  divine  knowledge.  The 
thousands  that  go  out  for  the  first  time  find  their  feeding 
grounds,  and  never  forget  to  return  when  the  time  comes 
for  them  to  deposit  their  spawn.  Some  seek  the  fresh 
streams,  and  some  the  salt  ocean;  each  one  seeks  the 
proper  condition  for  its  young,  which  it  is  never  to  see, 
and  to  which  it  probably  has  no  conscious  relation.  It 
leaves  its  accustomed  haunts,  where  would  seem  to  be  the 
most  natural  place  for  breeding,  and  seeks  out  a  far- 
distant  location  to  which  its  instinct  guides  it.  This  im- 
pulse was  given  to  complete  its  relation  to  the  world,  and 
is  the  same  evidence  of  design  as  the  form  of  the  fin  or 
the  structure  of  the  gill."  ^ 

These  few  forms  and  examples  of  instinct  will  suffice  to 
illustrate  its  nature  and  significance.  It  takes  up  the  con- 
trol or  regulation  of  animal  action  at  the  point  to  which 
mere  organization  and  function  have  brought  it,  and  car- 
ries it  up  and  over  to  the  boundary  at  which  intelligence 
and  freedom  come  into  play.  The  whole  animal  kingdom 
is  astir  with  its  action.  Its  utilities  are  omnipresent.  It 
directs  to  a  thousand  specific  objects  needed  in  the  whole 
system  of  things,  with  a  uniformity  on  the  one  hand  that 
looks  like  simple  mechanics,  and  with  an  adaptiveness  on 
the  other  hand  that  appears  divinely  wise  and  discrimi- 
nating. It  includes  a  principle  of  accommodating  variabil- 
ity by  which  it  rises  far  above  a  fixed  automatism,  and 
under   stress   of    emergency   presents    the    appearance   of 

1  Cliadboiinu':  Natural  Theology,  p.  97. 


THE    TELEOLOGICAl.    EVIDENCE.  131 

expedients  full  of  inventive  skill  and  adjiistive  purpose. 
Tlie  prescience  and  wisdom  that  work  tbrougii  it  often  far 
sur})ass  the  forecast  and  wisdom  of  man.  When  acting  in 
normal  conditions,  undisturbed  by  disarranging  circum- 
stances, it  never  hesitates  or  faltei's,  it  takes  no  time  for 
deliberation,  and  makes  no  mistakes.  It  works  frequent 
prodigies  which  remain  "insoluble  problems"  in  specula- 
tive science,  and  justify  tlie  exclamation  of  Kant:  "It  is 
the  voice  of  God."  So  impressively  does  it  force  its 
wonders  of  adaptive  prevision  and  wisdom  on  the  recogni- 
tion of  men,  that  when  skeptical  thought  has  excluded 
the  rational  theistic  explanation  of  it  all,  atheistic  specu- 
lation seeks  some  account  of  it  in  the  supposition  of 
an  Unconscious  Intelligence  in  the  world  itself.'  That  it 
works  for  ends  is  the  very  essence  or  defining  attribute 
of  the  power.  So  thoroughl}^  and  deeply  is  this  its  lead- 
ing characteristic  that  descriptive  science  cannot  describe 
its  place  and  action  except  in  the  terms  of  final  cause. 

THE  GENERAL   CONSTITUTION  OF   THE  WORLD. 

Tlie  matter  bearing  on  the  question  of  finality  under 
this  head  is  found  in  looking  at  the  general  relations 
between  different  parts  of  the  eartii-system  itself,  and  the 
relation  between  this  and  other  })arts  of  the  solar  and 
starry  systems. 

1.  The  Jiistor}/  of  the  earth  itsdf]  as  clearly  read  in 
geological  science,  makes  the  fact  indisputably  certain 
that  the  progress  of  our  globe  has  not  been  simply  a  for- 
ward and  confused  movement  in  time,  but  constantly 
toward  what  is  better  and  more  useful.  It  luis  been  real 
advance.     Wliat  each  period  was  made  l:»y  the  preceding 

1  Von  Hartmann's  Philosophy  of  the  Unconscious^  Introductory  (A),  III. 


13'3  XATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

was  not  after  the  manner  of  a  continuance  on  a  level  of 
miscellaneous  and  aimless  uncertainty,  but  into  a  more 
elevated  range  of  order  and  utility.  The  earliest  and 
lowest  geological  condition  was  wholly  unsuited  to  life. 
So  far  as  discoverable,  it  was  azoic.  By  some  cause  or 
other  the  atoms  adopted  action  of  beneficial  tendency, 
and  worked  up  into  liigher  things  than  they  first  exhib- 
ited. In  each  later  stage,  there  was  an  enriching  harvest 
from  the  earlier.  Tiie  movement  steadily  wrought  out 
superior  conditions.  And  as  we  stand  in  this  last  age  and 
look  back,  we  see  an  immense  progression,  wrought  on  the 
line  of  an  orderly  ascent  through  countless  years,  and  we 
are  surrounded  with  the  products,  delivered  to  us  out  of 
all  that  past,  which  provide  for  the  existence  and  welfare 
of  the  human  race.  The  movement  has  been  from  chaos 
to  cosmos,  or  a  world  rich  in  orderly  adaptations  and  in 
beauty.  It  has  advanced  from  dead  matter  into  life,  and 
into  suitable  provision  for  that  life.  Metals  and  minerals 
have  been  formed  and  stored  away,  making  possible  the 
high  utilities  and  enjoyments  of  the  civilization  and  cul- 
ture of  this  latest  age  of  time.  The  history  presents  no 
appearance  of  aimlessness.  The  very  law  of  progress, 
easily  read  in  the  earth's  evolution,  and  sometimes  urged 
by  atheistic  sophistry  to  discredit  theism,  is  really  and  in 
itself  a  fact  of  useful  adaptation,  incapable  of  explanation 
except  in  some  original,  fundamental,  all-inclusive  design. 
"2.  The  o'istencf  and  constitution  of  the  atmosphere 
reveal  finality.  The  wisdom  it  displays  cannot  be  credited 
to  accident.  It  has  been  placed  about  our  globe  as  an 
aerial  ocean,  of  about  forty-five  miles  depth.  It  is  lield 
dowu  to  tlie  earth  by  the  power  of  gravitation,  witli  a 
force  on  the  surface  equal  to  about  fifteen  pounds  to  the 


THE   TELEOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  13-3 

square  incli.  It  is  composed  of  oxygen  and  nitrogen 
gases,  in  such  proportions  as  to  supply  the  conditions  for 
life,  both  vegetable  and  animal.  These  elements  are  not 
united,  but  onl}-  mixed.  Yet  they  are  so  balanced  and 
held  in  equilibrium  by  the  force  of  gravitation  that  they 
keep  their  relative  proportions  everywhere,  while  the 
particles  have  such  easy  motion  among  themselves  as  to 
permit  us  to  move  in  the  bottom  of  this  atmospheric  ocean 
without  feeling  its  presence.  "  It  is  firm  enough  to  sup- 
port the  wings  of  a  lark  as  he  mounts  the  sky,  and  yet  so 
yielding  as  not  to  detain  the  tiniest  insect  in  its  flight." 
The  atmosphere  presents  most  impressive  adaptations  to 
the  general  constitution  of  the  earth  and  all  the  utilities 
and  enjoyments  of  the  life  of  the  world.  A  few  of  them 
will  suffice  as  illustrations. 

It  bears  and  conveys  whatever  is  needed  for  vegetable 
life  and  growth.  The  atmosphere  meets  the  soil  of  the 
earth  and  joins  with  it  in  furnishing  the  conditions  and 
productive  forces  for  plant  organization.  If  the  soil  holds 
and  can  give  some  portion,  the  air  fits  its  own  supply  to 
that  of  the  ground,  and  the  mysterious  process  is  accom- 
plished in  which  nature  rises  above  mechanical  action  into 
living  forms.  Not  a  seed  germinates,  not  a  flower  blooms, 
not  a  tree  grows,  but  as  the  atmosphere  is  present  with  its 
prepared  materials  and  adapted  forces.  The  treasures  of 
the  ground  would  be  in  vain  if  not  supplemented  in  the 
air. 

It  is  constituted  into  a  medium  for  vision.  This  re- 
quired a  combination  of  special  properties.  One  is  trans- 
parency. Though  the  transparency  of  the  atmosphere  is 
not  perfect,  its  actual  degree  of  it  is  an  essential  thing  in 
the  adaptation  of   the  world  for  such  beings  as  are  put 


134  KATFRAL   THEOLOGY. 

here  to  inhabit  it.  But  to  complete  the  adaptation  this 
property  has  been  united  with  another  —  its  diffusive 
power  for  the  sun's  rays.  Else  the  light  would  pass  right 
on,  leaving  vision  really  unprovided  for.  But  every  parti- 
cle of  the  atmosphere,  illuminated  by  direct  ray  of  the 
sun,  becomes  itself  a  new  centre  of  emission,  radiating 
light  in  every  direction.  In  this  way  the  light  is  diffused 
and  the  whole  atmosphere  is  illuminated.  Thus  is  pro- 
duced what  we  call  daylight.  When  the  sun's  rays  enter 
the  upper  air  the  whole  mass  becomes  illuminated,  and  the 
landscape  is  brightened  for  the  eye.  A  beam,  entering  a 
chamber,  fills  the  whole  space  with  light.  "  Were  it  not 
for  the  diffusive  effect  of  the  atmosphere  on  the  sun's  rays, 
the  contrast  between  light  and  shadows  would  be  so 
greatly  increased  tliat  while  objects  directly  illuminated 
by  the  sun  would  shine  so  brilliantly  as  to  dazzle  the  ej^es, 
all  surrounding  objects  would  be  in  darkness,  and  the 
interior  of  our  dwelling  would  be  as  dark  as  night."  ' 

The  atmosphere  is  adjusted  to  needful  results  on  the 
world's  temperature.  Whatever  may  be  the  physical  ex- 
planation of  heat  and  its  relation  to  light,  whether  or  not 
botli  are  only  modes  of  motion  and  at  bottom  one,  the 
effect  is  the  same,  and  equally  a  necessary  condition  for 
the  existence  of  organic  life  and  for  the  comfort  of  sen- 
tient existences.  "The  atmosphere  acts  for  diffusing  heat 
just  as  it  does  for  diffusing  light.  Were  it  not  for  this, 
the  greatest  extremes  would  be  produced  by  the  alterna- 
tions of  day  and  night,  probably  rendering  the  existence 
of  the  higher  forms  of  organic  life  impossible  on  the 
globe.      Not  only  does  the  atmosphere  diffuse  the  heat  of 

I  Prof.  J.  P.  Cooke's  Religion  and  Chemistry,  p.  35,  from  whicli  work 
manv  of  the  fact:^  in  this  division  of  ihe  subject  have  been  drawn. 


THE   TELEOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  135 

the  sun's  direct  rays,  and  so  mitigate  the  intensity  with 
which  these  rays  would  smite,  but  it  acts  even  more  effect- 
ually for  good  in  retaining  on  the  surface  the  heat  which 
the  earth  is  constantly  receiving.  The  atmosphere  has 
been  well  compared  to  a  mantle,  enveloping  the  earth  and 
protecting  it  from  the  cliill  of  the  celestial  spaces  through 
which  we  are  rushing  as  tlie  earth  goes  on  in  its  orbit."  ' 
In  this  ocean  of  air,  diffusing  and  retaining  the  heat,  we 
are  kept  warm.  And  by  its  incessant  currents,  produced 
bv  differing  exposure  to  the  sun's  direct  rays  and  by  the 
earth's  diurnal  motion,  the  heat  is  carried  and  distributed 
over  the  globe  in  remoter  zones  and  latitudes,  making  it 
more  widely  habitable,  and  breaking  or  preventing  what 
would  otherwise  become  unbearable  extremes  of  climate. 
3.  The  existence  of  toater^  witJi  its  speeied  pliysical 
constitution,  on  the  earth  is  a  manifest  adaptation  to  the 
same  ruling  utilities  to  which  the  other  parts  of  the  system 
look.  Composed  of  two  gases  in  union,  with  capacity  for 
vaporization  and  condensation  at  fixed  temperatures  that 
are  adjusted  to  the  actual  heat  of  the  atmosphere,  it  plays 
a  part  in  the  aggregate  world-economy,  without  which  all 
otlier  provision  would  prove  abortive.  Its  addition  to  the 
world  system  makes  actual  all  of  the  other  great  possibil- 
ities. Being  given  in  the  proportion  it  actually  holds  to 
other  parts,  and  vaporizing  and  condensing  at  the  point  it 
does  and  must,  it  is  carried  by  the  atmosphere  over  the 
earth  and  supplied  to  the  land  in  showers  from  the  sky, 
and  by  ceaseless  circuits  from  fountains  to  oceans  and 
back  again  the  continents  are  kept  irrigated,  and  refresh- 
ment is  furnished  to  all  living  existence.  Nature's  scheme 
of  irrigation  has  always,  indeed,  awakened  admiration  and 

1  Prof.  J.  P.  Cooke's  Religion  and  Cliem'xf^try.  pp.  46,  47, 


136  XATURAL    THEOLOGY. 

wonder.  The  peculiar  constitution  of  water  itself  and  the 
complex  agencies  employed  in  its  distribution  are  full  of 
clear  evidences  of  beneficent  counsel.  Unquestionably 
they  unite  in  serving  the  great  ends  which  the  other  parts 
of  nature  make  possible. 

4.  A  singular  and  significant  provision  appears  in  the 
law  by  lohicJi  tcater  expands  below  the  freezing  point. 
This  is  exceptional.  Generally  bodies  are  expanded  by 
heat  and  contracted  by  cold.  Water  itself  follows  this 
general  law  at  all  temperatures  above  40°.  As  its  surface 
becomes  cooled,  the  chilled,  and  therefore  heavier,  portions 
sink  toward  the  bottom,  causing  a  circulation  till  the  whole 
mass  has  sunk  to  40°.  From  this  point  it  becomes  lighter 
by  further  cooling,  and  the  cooled  portion  remains  on  top. 
At  32°  it  freezes.  Prof.  Cooke  states  the  result:  "Then 
comes  into  play  still  another  provision  in  the  properties  of 
water.  Most  substances  are  heavier  in  their  solid  than  in 
their  liquid  state;  but  ice,  on  the -contrary,  is  lighter  than 
water,  and  therefore  floats  on  its  surface.  Moreover,  as 
ice  is  a  very  poor  conductor  of  heat,  it  serves  as  a  protec- 
tion to  the  lake,  so  that  at  the  depth  of  a  few  feet,  at 
most,  the  temperature  of  the  water  during  winter  is  never 
under  40°,  although  the  atmosphere  may  continue  for 
weeks  below  zero.  If  water  resembled  other  liquids,  and 
continued  to  contract  with  cold  to  its  freezing  point  —  if 
this  exception  had  not  been  made,  the  whole  order  of  nat- 
ure would  have  been  reversed.  The  circulation  just  de- 
scribed would  continue  until  the  whole  mass  of  water  in 
the  lake  had  fallen  to  the  freezing  point.  The  ice  would 
then  first  form  at  the  bottom,  and  the  congelation  would 
continue  until  the  whole  lake  had  been  changed  into  one 
mass  of  solid  ice.      Upon  such  a  mass  the  hottest  summer 


THE   TELEOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  Id7 

would  produce  but  little  effect;  for  the  poor  conducting 
power  would  then  prevent  its  melting,  and  instead  of 
ponds  and  lakes  we  should  have  large  masses  of  ice,  wiiich 
during  the  summer  would  melt  on  the  surface  to  a  depth 
of  only  a  few  feet.  It  is  unnecessary  to  state  that  tliis 
condition  of  things  would  he  utterly  inconsistent  with  the 
existence  of  aquatic  plants  or  animals,  and  it  would  he 
almost  as  fatal  to  organic  life  everywhere;  for  not  only 
are  all  parts  of  the  creation  so  indissolubly  bound  together 
that  if  one  member  suffers  all  the  other  members  suffer 
with  it,  but,  moreover,  the  soil  itself  would,  to  a  certain 
extent,  share  in  the  fate  of  the  ponds.  The  soil  is  always 
more  or  less  saturated  with  water,  and,  under  existing 
conditions  in  our  temperate  zone,  the  frost  does  not  pene- 
trate to  a  sufficient  depth  to  kill  the  roots  and  seeds  of 
plants  which  are  buried  under  it.  But  were  water  con- 
stituted like  other  liquids,  the  soil  would  remain  frozen  to 
the  depth  of  many  feet,  and  the  only  effect  of  the  sum- 
mer's heat  would  be  to  melt  a  few  inches  at  the  surface. 
It  would  be,  perhaps,  possible  to  cultivate  some  hardy  an- 
nuals in  such  a  climate,  but  this  would  be  all.  Trees  and 
shrubs  could  not  brave  the  severity  of  the  winter.  Thus, 
then,  it  appears  that  the  very  existence  of  life  in  these 
temperate  regions  of  the  earth  depends  on  an  apparent 
exception  to  a  general  law  of  nature,  so  slight  and  so 
limited  in  its  extent  that  it  can  only  be  detected  by  the 
most  refined  scientific  observation."  '  This  is  exceedingly 
expressive  of  a  purpose. 

5,  The  7'elations  of  organized  bodies  to  their  assigned 
l^lace  exhibit  remarkable  correlations.  The  finality  which 
appears  in  the  inner  order  of  organisms  is  carried  further 

1  Religion  and  Chemistry,  p.  149. 


138  NATURAL  THEOLOGY. 

in  the  adaptation  between  them  and  the  world  without. 
Somehow  or  other  both  men  and  the  lower  animals  have 
the  benefit  of  a  "  preestablished  harmony "  provided 
between  themselves  and  the  place  they  come  to  occupy. 
This  harmony  is  especially  remarkable  because  the  things 
found  adjusted  have  their  origins  far  apart  and  independ- 
ent. The  earth  existed  long  before  man.  When  he  came, 
it  was  necessary  not  only  that  his  body  should  be  inter- 
nally organized,  but  externally  adapted  to  conditions 
already  existing.  The  two  sides  of  his  existence,  the 
internal  and  the  external,  have  been  framed  to  each  other 
with  the  finest  accuracy.  Outside  of  him,  for  instance,  is 
material  capable  of  affording  nourishment.  Within  is  an 
elaborate  provision  for  utilizing  that  material.  The  soil, 
showers,  and  sunlight  produce  grains  and  fruits,  and  the 
digestive  and  nutritive  systems  are  exactly  arranged  for 
using  these  products.  The  wheat  in  the  field  and  the  mill 
for  making  it  into  flour  are  not  more  clearly  correspond- 
ent facts.  Each  of  the  senses  answers  to  specific  realities 
in  external  nature,  and  is  answered  to  by  them.  The 
mind  itself  is  correlated  to  the  material  world,  and  all  its 
powers  of  knowledge  stand  face  to  face  with  objects  to  be 
known.  In  the  need  of  sleep,  man  seems  to  be  organized 
even  to  the  movements  of  the  solar  system,  the  need  of 
rest  being  met  in  the  suitable  conditions  for  it. 

The  various  species  of  animals  present  even  more  striking 
adaptations  to  place  and  appointed  modes  of  life.  Man,  by 
being  rational  and  capable  of  clothing  and  sheltering  him- 
self, is  cosmopolitan.  The  lower  orders  are  more  local  and 
more  distinctly  adjusted  to  their  limited  ranges.  Each  order 
is  found  fundamentally  organized  for  its  element  and  place, 
in  water,  on  land,  or  in  the  atmosjjhere.     The  fundamental 


THE   TELEOLOGICAL   EVIDENCE.  139 

structure  is  varied  in  endless  diversities  as  situations  are 
changed.  All  tliese  variations  from  the  ruling  plan  are 
not  defects,  but  examples  of  the  perfection  of  the  adaptive 
law.  When  an  experienced  naturalist  knows  the  situa- 
tion, he  can  anticipate  the  organization,  for  it  is  found  to 
follow  the  line  of  a  rational  accommodation.  When  he 
finds  a  particular,  perhaps  unique,  feature  of  structure,  he 
will  look  at  once  for  its  purpose,  and  expect  to  find  some 
other  reality  to  which  it  corresponds,  marking  the  wisdom 
of  the  change. 

These  truths  will  be  found  exemplified  in  all  grades 
of  life,  from  animalculae  to  mammoths.  No  ship  on 
the  sea  is  better  fitted  for  its  place  than  is  the  nauti- 
lus pornpylius^  that  finds  its  water-tight  compartments 
built  in  its  little  vessel  by  the  very  law  of  growth.  No 
work  of  man  can  surpass  the  adaptation  of  the  bird  to 
the  varied  necessities  and  offices  of  life  in  the  air  —  an 
equipped  vessel  for  navigating  the  atmospheie.  The 
earthworm  gropes  in  the  ground  and  finds  full  provision 
for  its  humble  existence.  The  mole  burrows  in  darkness 
through  moisture  and  dirt,  and  comes  out  with  its  glossy 
fineness  unsoiled.  The  walrus  and  the  seal  present  forms 
of  organization  framed  and  compacted  to  the  rigors  of 
arctic  cold  and  ice. 

The  fitting  of  a!iimals  to  their  place  often  involves 
peculiar  provisions  accommodating  them  to  periodic 
changes  of  climate.  In  some  cases  this  takes  the  as- 
tonishing form  of  hibernation  —  a  falliiio-  when  winter 
approaches,  into  a  peculiar  and  deep  slumber,  with  very 
low  vitality,  in  which  condition  they  live  off  of  their  own 
stored-up  substance,  till  spring  calls  to  the  awakening 
and    to    fresh   growths   of  food.      In   other  cases,  nature 


140  :n^atural  theology. 

thickeiYis  the  coating  of  fur  when  the  cold  weather 
comes  on,  and  thins  it  again  when  summer  returns. 
These  peculiar  things  can  not  be  fairly  explained  as 
mere  results  of  the  periodic  change  of  temperature; 
for  the  facts,  as  well  as  some  attendant  and  previsive 
instincts,  anticipate  the  change  and  prepare  for  it.  It 
arises  from  some  profounder  law  or  pi-o vision  in  the 
animal's  system,  whose  machinery,  it  has  been  well  said, 
"  has  been  adjusted  to  the  clockwork  of  the  stars."  How- 
ever, the  influence  of  environment  in  bringing  about  these 
adaptations  is  not,  just  here,  the  point  of  inquiry,  but  only 
whether  in  fact  nature  is  found  acting  previsiveh^  for  real 
ends.  Such  action,  whatever  solution  of  it  may  be  offered, 
manifestly  marks  these  arrangements  in  nature's  work. 

6.  In  the  relations  of  the  earth  to  the  solar  system,  of 
which  it  forms  a  part,  and  of  the  solar  system  to  the  other 
parts  of  the  stellar  universe,  we  trace  the  reality  of  an 
adjusted  order  in  grandest  scale.  Modern  astronomy  has 
opened  the  universe  to  view  in  proportions  that  awe  and 
confound  the  human  mind.  The  millions  on  millions  of 
stars  that  fill  the  sky  are  now  recognized  as  suns,  proba- 
bly surrounded,  like  our  own,  each  by  many  circling 
worlds,  system  on  system  ranging  away  in  space,  one 
beyond  another,  with  intervening  distances  compared  with 
which  the  distance  from  the  earth  to  the  sun  is  but  a,  span. 
The  starry  universe  has  grown  to  be  virtually  infinite  to 
our  view.  But  order  illuminates  it  like  light.  Our  earth, 
for  instance,  in  size,  weight,  figure,  distance,  orbital  and 
axial  motions,  is  fitted  into  the  solar  system  in  exactest 
conformity  to  the  requirements  of  geometrical  principles 
and  the  law  of  gravitation.  The  same  is  true  of  all  the 
planets,  with  their  satellites,  in  this  system.      In  the  pre- 


THE   TELEOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  141 

cision  of  their  revolutions  under  the  two  mighty  forces 
by  which  their  motion  is  determined,  their  ceaseless  equi- 
poise among  themselves,  their  velocities  both  on  axis  and 
in  orbit,  their  return  in  their  mighty  cycles  being  timed 
to  very  seconds,  and  in  the  amounts  of  light  and  heat 
furnished  to  them,  they  present  an  adjustment  so  com- 
plete and  in  such  gigantic  magnitudes  as  to  kindle  per- 
petual admiration  and  wonder.  Astronomy  finds  the 
same  law  of  order  in  each  and  all  of  the  milliard  stellar 
systems  that  have  their  place  in  infinite  space,  and  in  the 
relations  which  hold  between  them.  Thus  the  universe, 
with  its  unnumbered  groups  of  worlds,  stretching  into 
immensity,  though  a  universe  all  in  motion,  is  neverthe- 
less an  established  and  singing  harmony. 

It  is  impossible,  in  the  small  space  allowed  by  the  jDlan 
of  this  discussion,  to  present  the  particulars  which  exem- 
plify these  general  statements.  It  would  require  the 
details  of  a  full  treatise  on  astronomy.  For  the  specific 
and  impressive  facts  the  reader  must  be  referred  to  works 
of  that  class. 

CHEMISTRY. 
The  point  in  chemistry  bearing  on  the  question  of  final 
cause  is  the  evident  constitution  of  the  primitive  elements 
for  all  the  beneficent  purposes  of  world-building  and 
human  welfare.  When  nature  is  examined  to  the  last 
analysis  of  its  matter,  adaptation  is  a  fact  that  refuses  to 
disappear.  Tho  simple  elements  are  discovered  to  be 
exactly  fitted,  not  merely  to  produce  some  result  by  their 
chemical  reactions,  but  precisely  such  results  as  serve  to 
construct  an  orderly,  habitable  world,  with  provision  for 
sentient  enjoyment  and  human  welfare.     The  properties 


142  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

found  to  belong  to  these  elements  mark  them  as  prepared 
material.  The  adaptation  of  the  sawed,  planed,  squared, 
and  carved  pieces  of  wood  which  the  cabinet  maker 
unites  to  make  a  table,  or  of  the  carefully  shaped  plates 
and  bars  and  bolts  and  screws  which  the  machinist  forms 
into  a  steam  engine,  is  only  a  faint  suggestion  of  the 
wonderful  adaptations  which  reveal  themselves  in  the 
chemical  elements. 

To  make  this  evident  in  a  few  illustrative  examples, 
we  cannot  do  better  than  to  abridge  some  explanations 
from  Prof.  J.  P.  Cooke's  RelUfion  and  Chemistry  : ' 

1.  The  great  element  of  nature  is  oxygen.  It  forms 
one-fifth  of  the  volume  of  the  atmosphere.  It  com- 
poses between  one-half  and  one-third  of  the  crust  of  the 
globe.  It  makes  up  eight-ninths  of  all  the  earth's  water, 
three-fourths  of  our  bodies,  not  less  than  four-fifths  of 
every  plant,  and  at  least  one-half  of  the  solid  rocks. 
More  than  twenty  tons  of  pressure  to  the  square  inch  is 
required  to  reduce  oxygen  to  a  liquid  condition.  This 
will  give  some  idea  of  the  chemical  force  by  which  it  is 
held  imprisoned  in  its  liquid  and  solid  forms.  In  a  tum- 
bler of  water  there  are  no  less  than  six  cubic  feet  of  oxy- 
gen gas,  condensed  to  a  liquid  state  and  held  there  by 
the  continuous  action  of  a  force  which  can  be  measured 
onlv  by  hundreds  of  tons  of  pressure.  Who  can  esti- 
mate the  silent  chemical  power  by  which  this  subtle 
material  is  fitted  for  building  the  solid  and  abiding  foun- 
dations of  the  earth  ? 

2.  It  can  hardly  be  without  a  purpose  that  oxygen,  as 
well  as  hydrogen,  is  entirely  destitute  of  both  odor  <uid 
taste.     As    these    gases    exist    in    a  free    state,  and  only 

1  Revised  Edition  of  1880  (Clias.  Scribner's  Sons). 


THE   TELEOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  143 

mixed  in  our  atmosphere,  these  properties  would  become 
manifest  if  they  existed.  But  if  odor  and  taste  were  to 
be  qualities  concerned  in  the  clioico  of  foods  and  other 
disci-iuiinations  by  men  and  animals,  this  negative  charac- 
terisitic  assumes  the  place  of  a  fundamental  condition. 
These  discriminations  would  seem  to  be  possible  only  in 
tlie  absence  of  taste  and  odor  in  the  essential  gases. 

3.  The  tendency  of  oxygen  to  diffusion  is  an  impor- 
tant property.  All  gases  tend  to  expand,  and  can  be  pre- 
vented from  doing  so  only  by  being  inclosed.  Oxygen 
and  nitrogen,  the  chief  gases  of  the  atmosphere,  under 
this  diffusive  tendency,  are  so  spread  and  mixed  with  each 
other  over  the  whole  earth  that  they  are  present  in  equal 
proportions  everywhere.  Analysis  can  detect  no  more 
than  the  slightest  difference  in  composition  between  the 
air  brought  from  the  summit  of  the  Alps  and  that  from 
the  deepest  mine  in  Cornwall.  Were  it  not  for  this  law  of 
diffusion,  this  tendency  to  spread  equally  everywhere  in 
spite  of  the  presence  of  other  gases,  the  two  gases  might 
separate  partially,  and  the  atmosphere  would  become  un- 
fitted for  many  of  its  most  important  functions.  Take, 
for  example,  the  function  of  transmitting  sound.  As  the 
air  is  now  constituted,  there  is  a  constancy  of  pitch,  how- 
ever far  the  sound  travels.  Any  tone  once  generated 
remains  the  same  tone  till  it  dies  away.  Its  degree  of 
loudness  alters  in  proportion  to  the  distance  of  the  listener^ 
but  the  pitch  is  constant.  Were  it  not,  however,  for  this 
law  of  diffusion,  were  the  atmosphere  not  perfectly  homoge- 
neous, and  were  the  gases  of  which  it  consists  even  partially 
separated,  there  would  have  been  a  very  different  result. 
The  constancy  of  pitch  could  no  longer  be  depended  upon. 
Tlie  sound,  as  it  travelled,  would  vary  with  the  ever  varying 


144  ifATUKAL   THEOLOGY. 

medium  through  which  it  passed,  and  would  arrive  at  the 
ear  with  a  tone  entirely  different  from  that  with  which  it 
started.  Nor  would  it  require  any  great  difference  in  the 
medium  to  produce  a  sensible  result,  and  to  confuse  all 
those  delicate  differences  of  pitch  on  which  the  whole  art 
of  music  depends.  Without  this  careful  adjustment  of 
force  the  magnificent  creations  of  a  Mozart  or  a  Beetho- 
ven would  be  impossible. 

4.  Another  property  of  oxygen  must  be  mentioned 
—  that  its  temperature  point  for  active  union  with  other 
elements  is  fixed  ichere  it  is.  In  its  common  state  in  the 
air  it  is  passive,  inert.  It  seems  devoid  of  any  active  prop- 
erties. It  is  in  contact  with  all  matter;  it  bathes  the  most 
delicate  animal  organisms;  it  fills  all  the  air  passages  of 
the  lungs,  and  penetrates  among  the  tissues.  It  seems 
wanting  in  all  active  or  strong  chemical  force.  But  if 
the  temperature  be  raised  to  red  heat,  what  was  lately  so 
inert  at  once  rushes  into  chemical  union  with  other  ele- 
ments, the  action  exhibiting  what  we  call  fire.  The  gentle 
breeze  which  was  waving  the  corn  and  fanning  the  brows- 
ing herds  becomes  the  next  moment  a  consuming  fire,  by 
which  the  works  of  man  melt  away  into  air.  The  transi- 
tion from  the  inert  to  this  active  condition  does  not  neces- 
sarily require  the  temperature  of  any  large  body  of  air,  or 
of  any  combustible  material  to  be  raised  to  this  high  grade. 
There  is  a  provision  in  nature  by  which  the  chemical  com- 
bination, when  once  started,  through  sufficient  heat  at  a 
single  point,  is  sustained  till  the  whole  is  consumed.  All 
combustion  is  a  process  of  chemical  combination.  This  is 
attended  by  the  evolution  of  heat;  and  in  the  combination 
of  oxygen  with  any  substance  enough  heat  is  generated 
at  the  point  of  actual  burning  to  continue  it  to  the  next 


THE   TELEOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  145 

part.  Different  substances  ignite  at  different  temper- 
atures. Phosphorus,  for  instance,  ignites  at  a  temperature 
less  than  that  of  boiling  water,  sulphur  at  about  500°, 
wood  at  full  red  heat,  anthracite  coal  at  a  white  heat, 
while  iron  requires  the  highest  heat  of  a  blacksmith's 
forge.  The  point  of  ignition  for  different  bodies  being- 
fixed,  puts  the  energies  of  this  powerful  agent  at  the  com- 
mand of  men.  It  is  worthy  of  note  that  this  point  has 
been  placed  for  wood,  coal,  and  all  common  combustibles, 
sufficiently  above  the  ordinary  temperature  of  the  air  to 
insure  general  exemption  from  conflagration.  Spontane- 
ous combustion  is  thus  provided  against.  And  a  check  is 
put  on  the  violence  of  burning,  after  combustion  has  been 
started.  This  is  done  by  another  provision — the  energies 
of  oxygen  being  tempered  by  extreme  dilution.  Experi- 
ments show  that  the  slowness  of  combustion  depends  on 
the  fact  that  in  the  atmosphere  oxygen  is  mixed  with  a 
great  mass  of  inert  gas,  and  the  proportion  has  been  so 
adjusted  in  the  scheme  of  creation  as  generally  to  restrain 
the  awakened  energies  of  the  fire  element  w^ithin  narrow 
limits,  which  man  appoints.  It  is  easy  to  see  how  a  small 
change  in  the  amount  of  oxygen  in  the  air  would  involve 
all  organized  matter  in  a  general  conflagration. 

Now  this  property  of  oxygen,  in  connection  with  its 
fixed  relative  amount,  prepares  it  for  all  the  beneficent 
uses  it  serves,  not  only  in  its  passive,  quiet  state,  but  in  its 
active  energies,  giving  so-called  '"fire"  to  man,  essential 
both  to  common  daily  life  and  to  all  the  industries,  sci- 
ences, arts,  and  culture  by  wiiich  the  race  rises  into  dignity 
and  power.  Fire  is  one  of  the  most  valuable  seryants  of 
mankind;  it  is  the  great  source  of  artificial  heat  and  light. 
In  the  steam  engine  it  is  the  apparent  origin  of  that  powder 
10 


146  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

which  animates  the  commerce  and  the  industry  of  the  civ- 
ilized world.  Under  its  influence  iron  becomes  plastic;  the 
ores  give  up  their  metallic  treasures.  It  is  the  agent  of 
all  the  arts.  In  the  light  of  modern  science  all  this  utility 
comes  from  the  peculiar  capacities  of  oxygen.  The  adap- 
tations are  too  striking  to  be  overlooked,  and  too  elaborate 
and  adjusted  to  be  counted  only  happenings.  Immeas- 
urable power  is  found  locked  up  in  perfect  mildness,  and 
submitted  to  the  service  of  man.  This  strongest  of  the 
chemical  elements,  although  a  permanent  gas,  forms  more 
than  one-half  of  the  solid  crust  of  the  earth,  and  is  en- 
dowed with  such  mighty  affinities  that  it  is  retained  se- 
curely by  them  in  its  solid  state,  yet  it  is,  in  the  atmosphere, 
so  shorn  of  its  energies  as  not  to  singe  the  down  of  the 
gossamer,  and  still  so  tempered  that  its  powers  may  be 
evoked  at  the  will  of  man  and  made  subservient  to  his 
wants. 

5.  When  oxygen  unites  with  the  elements  of  wood, 
coal,  or  other  combustible  matter,  two  chief  products  are 
set  free:  carbonic  dioxide  gas  and  aqueous  vapor.  These 
products  are  colorless  and  transparent,  without  odor  or 
taste.  They  escape  from  the  burning  wood,  ascend  the 
chimney,  and  pass  off  into  the  general  atmosphere.  If 
the  chemist  takes  the  smoke  and  weighs  it,  he  finds  that 
it  weighs  more  than  the  burnt  wood  —  a  weight  equal  to 
that  of  the  wood  and  of  the  air  consumed  in  the  burning. 
Now,  provision  is  made  in  nature  by  which  this  smoke  is 
worked  up  again  into  new  combinations.  A  new  cycle  of 
changes  is  begun  where  the  flame  ends.  The  carbonic 
dioxide  and  the  aqueous  vapor,  after  roving  at  liberty  for 
awhile,  are  absorbed  by  the  leaves  of  trees  and  the  blades 
of  2-rass,  and  under  the  influence  of  the  sun-rays,  help  to 


THE   TELEOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  147 

form  new  wood  and  grow  crops  for  the  use  of  man. 
Everything  appears  to  be  ordered  so  as  to  run  in  channels 
of  economic  utility.  The  atmosphere  is  kept  pure,  nothing- 
is  lost,  and  nature  keeps  up  a  beneficent  order. 

6.  The  original  adaptation  of  oxygen  for  world- 
building  is  strikingly  shown  by  the  largeness  of  its  office 
in  forming  the  bod}^  of  the  earth.  We  must  look  at  it 
not  onl}^  in  its  place  and  relations  in  the  atmosphere, 
fitting  it  as  the  medium  for  life  and  breathing,  and  fur- 
nishing fire  and  all  its  dependent  utilities  of  heat  and 
combustion,  but  in  producing  materials  for  building  our 
globe.  In  its  earlier  stages,  at  least,  the  making  of  the 
world  seems  to  have  been  a  process  of  burning,  and  its 
foundations  were  laid  in  flames.  Examining  the  matter 
of  which  the  earth  is  made,  we  find  a  great  many  sub- 
stances, all  composed  of  about  seventy  so-called  chemical 
elements;  that  is,  substances  considered  as  simple,  because 
not  yet,  at  least,  found  capable  of  being  decomposed. 
Accepting  oxygen  as  the  supporter  of  combustion,  the 
great  mass  of  the  remaining  elements  are  combustible; 
that  is,  under  certain  conditions  they  combine  rapidly  with 
oxygen,  evolving  light  and  heat.  Carboji  is  an  element, 
phosphorus  is  an  element;  so  is  iron,  sulj)hur,  and  each  of 
the  other  metals.  Out  of  these,  combined  with  oxygen, 
the  world  is  built,  oxygen  being  the  largest  element. 
Oxygen  unites  with  calcium,  forming  lime,  and  lime  rocks, 
under  vaiious  modifications,  constitute  a  large  part  of  the 
earth's  crust.  It  unites  with  silicon,  forming  silica,  the 
very  hard  white  solid  appearing  in  the  varieties  of  stone 
known  as  quartz,  rock  crystal,  agate,  jasper,  chalcedony, 
opal,  and  others.  Over  one-half  of  the  weight  of  each  of 
these  is  oxygen.     In  union  with  aluminum  it  forms  a  com- 


148  NATURAL    THEOLOGY. 

pound  called  alumina,  a  substance  out  of  which  nature 
makes  sapphires  and  rubies,  and  which,  when  united  with 
silica  and  water,  furnishes  us  with  clay.  With  magnesium 
it  forms  magnesia,  and  this  in  union  with  silica  makes, 
according  to  the  proportions,  hornblende  or  augite,  two 
minerals  which  abound  in  many  varieties  of  rock.  Add 
water  to  the  composition,  and  we  get  also  serpentine  or 
soapstone,  with  many  other  allied  mineral  species.  Potas- 
sum  with  oxygen  turns  to  potash.  Melt  potash,  lime,  and 
silicious  earth  together,  and  we  have  glass.  Unite  potash, 
silica,  and  alumina,  and  we  get  feldspar;  combine  them  in 
different  proportions,  and  we  have  mica;  in  other  propor- 
tions, garnet.  Lastly,  mix  quartz  and  feldspar  together 
with  mica  or  hornblende,  in  an  indiscriminate  jumble, 
and  we  have  the  several  varieties  of  the  granite  rock. 
Thus  by  union  of  oxygen  with  a  few  other  elements, 
under  what  is  known  as  the  process  of  burning,  the  mate- 
rials are  formed  which,  by  further  combinations,  produce 
all  the  varieties  of  the  earth's  rocks  and  soils.  More  than 
one-half  of  the  whole  consists  of  oxygen.  Silicon  forms 
about  one-fourth.  Other  elements  enter  in  smaller  pro- 
portions. Evidently,  therefore,  so  far  as  our  knowledge 
extends,  oxygen,  silicon,  carbon,  together  with  a  few 
metals,  have  been  the  chief  building  materials  in  making 
the  world,  and  oxygen  has  been,  so  to  speak,  the  universal 
cement  by  which  the  various  elements  have  been  bound 
together  in  the  grand  and  diversified  whole. 

We  might  go  on  to  collect  from  reliable  chemical 
authorities  hundreds  of  such  examples,  showing  adaptation 
in  the  elementary  matter  of  the  world.  The  properties  of 
hydrogen  are  only  less  significant  than  those  of  oxygen. 
Facts  of  definite  utility  for  world  structure  come  into  view 


THE   TELEOLOGICAL    EVIDENCP:.  149 

all  through  the  work  of  chemistry.  They  fill  the  mind 
with  wonder,  and  many  of  them  read  like  romance  when 
Science  in  her  soberest  moods  sets  them  before  us.  Es- 
pecially is  this  so  when  molecular  physics,  by  means  of  the 
spectrum,  shows  the  elements  to  be  the  same  in  distant 
worlds  and  on  the  earth,  whether  procured  from  water 
or  coal  of  our  planet  or  from  meteoric  iron,  whether  in 
the  light  of  a  lamp  or  coming  from  the  sun  or  Sirius  or 
Arcturus,  making  it  thus  exceedingly  probable  that  the 
molecules  have  had  a  common  origin. 

We  mention,  however,  only  one  thing  more,  especially 
deserving  of  notice  both  because  it  is  fundamental  in  the 
whole  system  of  chemistry,  and  because  of  its  bearing  on 
the  point  which  we  wish  to  emphasize.  This  is  the  "law 
of  definite  proportions,"  or  equivalents,  in  the  union  of 
the  various  elements  in  chemical  reactions.  When  any 
two  of  these  elements  unite  to  form  a  compound 
body,  the  proportions  in  which  they  combine  are  not 
decided  by  chance.  We  cannot  unite  them  in  any 
proportions  we  may  please.  They  are  fixed  in  each 
case  according  to  an  unvarying  law;  and  the  relative 
amount  required  seems  to  be  weighed  out  by  nature  in  her 
delicate  scales  with  an  exactness  which  no  art  can  attain. 
Works  on  chemistry  usually  give  tables  showing  the 
numerical  value  or  "atomic  weight"  for  each  element. 
Whenever  the  elements  unite  with  each  other,  it  is  found 
to  be  in  the  exact  proportions  indicated  by  these  numbers, 
or  else  in  some  multiple  of  these  proportions.  These 
values  are  called  "atomic  weights,"  because  according  to 
the  theory  of  modern  chemistry  they  represent  the  relative 
weights  of  the  ultimate  atoms  of  the  elements.  If  this 
be    the   case,   it    is   evident    that   when   the  atoms    group 


150  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

themselves  together  to  form  the  molecules  of  various  sub- 
stances, the  elements  must  combine  by  whole  atoms.  The 
law  of  proportions,  therefore,  seems  to  point  back  to 
definite  and  unvarying  properties  in  the  assumed  atoms 
themselves,  by  which  they  are  adapted  to  produce  what 
we  call  the  elements,  or,  rather,  the  molecules  of  which 
these  elements  consist. 

The  adaptive  existence  and  action  thus  begin  not  only 
back  of  organisms  and  chemical  compounds,  but  back  of 
the  elements  themselves.  Tlie  very  atoms  contain  the 
law.  The  principle  of  hnality  acts  from  the  beginning. 
The  elementary  molecules  are  the  ultimate  things  that 
science  can  directly  examine  in  its  retrogressive  analysis, 
and  thus  this  testimony  of  chemistry  as  to  the  marks  of 
adaptation  which  they  show  is  of  exceeding  value.  Sci- 
ence will  hardly  be  able  to  eliminate  from  nature  what  is 
found  inliering  in  the  molecules.  Prof.  Cooke,  from  whose 
able  work  we  have  drawn  most  of  the  facts  recited  on  tliis 
point,  well  concludes:  "The  great  argument  of  Natural 
Theology  rests  on  a  basis  which  no  present  theories  of 
development  can  touch.  I  have  endeavored  to  show 
that  there  is  abundant  evidence  of  design  even  in  the 
properties  of  the  chemical  elements,  the  stones  of 
nature's  edifice.  The  footprints  of  the  Creator  are  no- 
where more  plainly  visible  than  on  that  very  matter  which 
the  materialists  so  vainly  worship."  It  is  not  Prof. 
Cooke  alone  who  assures  us  of  this  fact.  He  is  simply 
one  in  the  line  of  competent  witnesses  to  it.  Probably  no 
philosopher  of  recent  times  was  better  acquainted  wnth 
the  interior  realities  of  nature  than  Sir  John  Herschel,  and 
he  has  put  his  testimony  concerning  these  elementary 
molecules  in  the  strikino-  and  memorable  declaration  that 


THE   TELEOLO(UCAL    EVIDENCE.  151 

they  possessed  all  the  characteristics  of  "manufactured 
articles."  Prof.  J.  Clerk  Maxwell,  an  authority  second  to 
none  in  experimental  physics,  is  led  by  his  minute  research 
to  the  same  conclusion:  "It  is  well  known  that  living 
being-s  may  be  grouped  into  a  certain  number  of  species, 
defined  with  more  or  less  precision,  and  that  it  is  difficult 
or  impossible  to  find  a  series  of  individuals  forming  the 
links  of  a  continuous  chain  between  one  species  and 
another.  In  the  case  of  living  beings,  however,  the  gen- 
eration of  individuals  is  always  going  on,  each  individual 
differing  more  or  less  from  its  parents.  Each  individual, 
during  its  whole  life,  is  undergoing  modification,  and  it 
either  survives  and  propagates  its  species,  or  dies  early, 
according  as  it  is  more  or  less  adapted  to  the  circumstances 
of  its  environment.  Hence,  it  has  been  found  possible  to 
frame  a  theory  of  the  distribution  of  organisms  into  spe- 
cies by  means  of  generation,  variation,  and  discriminative 
destruction.  But  a  theory  of  evolution  of  this  kind  can- 
not be  applied  to  the  case  of  molecules,  for  the  individual 
molecules  neither  are  born  nor  die,  they  have  neither 
parents  nor  offspring,  and  so  far  from  being  modified  by 
their  environment,  we  find  that  two  molecules  of  the  same 
kind,  say  of  hydrogen,  have  the  same  properties,  though 
one  has  been  compounded  with  carbon  and  buried  in  the 
earth  as  coal  for  untold  ages,  while  the  other  has  been 
'occluded'  in  the  iron  of  a  meteorite,  and  after  unknown 
wanderings  in  the  heavens  has  at  last  fallen  into  the  hands 
of  some  terrestrial  chemist.  The  process  by  which  the 
molecules  become  distributed  into  distinct  species  is  not 
one  of  which  we  know  any  instances  going  on  at  present, 
or  of  which  we  have  as  yet  been  able  to  form  any  mental 
representation.     If  we  suppose  that  the  molecules  known 


152  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

to  US  are  built  up  each  of  some  moderate  number  of  atoms, 
these  atoms  being  all  of  them  exactly  alike,  then  we  may 
attribute  the  limited  number  of  molecular  species  to  the 
limited  number  of  ways  in  which  the  primitive  atoms  may 
be  combined  so  as  to  form  a  permanent  system.  But 
though  this  hypothesis  gets  rid  of  the  difficulty  of  account- 
ing for  the  independent  origin  of  different  species  of  mol- 
ecules, it  merely  transfers  the  difficulty  from  the  known 
molecules  to  the  primitive  atoms.  How  did  the  atoms 
come  to  be  all  alike  in  those  properties  which  are  in  them- 
selves capable  of  assuming  any  value  ?  .  .  .  We  have 
seen  that  the  very  different  circumstances  in  which  differ- 
ent molecules  of  the  same  kind  have  been  placed  have  not, 
even  in  the  course  of  many  ages,  produced  any  apprecia- 
ble difference  in  the  value  of  these  constants.  If,  then,  the 
various  processes  of  nature  to  which  these  molecules  have 
been  subjected  since  the  world  began  have  not  been  able 
in  all  that  time  to  produce  anj^  appreciable  difference  be- 
tween the  constants  of  one  molecule  and  those  of  another, 
we  are  forced  to  conclude  that  it  is  not  to  the  operation  of 
any  of  these  processes  that  the  uniformity  of  the  constant 
is  due.  The  formation  of  the  molecule  is,  therefore,  an 
event  not  belonging  to  that  order  of  nature  under  which 
we  live.  It  is  an  operation  of  a  kind  which  is  not,  so  far 
as  we  are  aware,  going  on  in  the  earth  or  in  the  sun  or  the 
stars,  either  now  or  since  these  bodies  began  to  be  formed. 
It  must  be  referred  to  the  epoch,  not  of  the  formation  of 
the  earth  or  of  the  solar  system,  but  of  the  establishment 
of  the  existing  order  of  nature,  and  till  not  only  these 
worlds  and  systems,  but  the  very  order  of  nature  itself  is 
dissolved,  we  have  no  reason  to  expect  the  occurrence  of 
any  operation  of  a  similar  kind.   .   .    .   Whether  or  not  the 


THE   TELEOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  153 

conception  of  a  multitude  of  beings  existing  from  all 
eternity  is  in  itself  self-contradictory,  the  conception 
becomes  palpably  absurd  when  we  attribute  a  relation  of 
quantitative  equality  to  all  these  beings.  We  are  then 
forced  to  look  beyond  them  to  some  common  cause  or 
common  origin  to  explain  why  this  singular  relation  of 
equality  exists,  rather  than  any  one  of  the  infinite  number 
of  possible  relations  of  inequality. 

"  Science  is  incompetent  to  reason  upon  the  creation  of 
matter  itself  out  of  nothing.  We  have  reached  the 
utmost  limit  of  our  thinking  faculties  when  we  have 
admitted  that,  because  matter  cannot  be  eternal  and  self- 
existent,  it  must  have  been  created.  It  is  only  when  we 
contemplate  not  matter  in  itself,  but  the  form  in  which  it 
actually  exists,  that  our  mind  finds  something  on  which  it 
can  lay  hold.  That  matter,  as  such,  should  have  certain 
fundamental  properties,  that  it  should  have  a  continuous 
existence  in  space  and  time;  that  all  action  should  be 
between  two  portions  of  matter,  and  so  on,  are  truths 
which  may,  for  aught  we  know,  be  of  the  kind  which 
metaphysicians  call  necessary.  We  may  use  our  knowl- 
edge of  such  truths  for  purposes  of  deduction,  but  we 
have  no  data  for  speculating  on  their  origin. 

"  But  the  equality  of  the  constants  of  the  molecules  is 
a  fact  of  a  very  different  order.  It  arises  from  a  particu- 
lar distribution  of  matter,  a  collocation^  to  use  the  ex- 
pression of  Dr.  Chalmers,  of  things  which  we  have  no 
difficulty  in  imagining  to  have  been  arranged  otherwise. 
But  many  of  the  ordinary  instances  of  collocation  are 
adjustments  of  constants,  which  are  not  only  arbitrary  in 
their  own  nature,  but  in  which  variations  actually  occur; 
and  when  it  is  pointed  out  that  these    adjustments    are 


154  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

beneficial  to  living  beings,  and  are  therefore  instances  of 
benevolent  design,  it  is  replied  tliat  those  variations 
which  are  not  conducive  to  the  growth  and  multiplication 
of  living  beings  tend  to  their  destruction,  and  to  the 
removal  thereby  of  the  evidence  of  any  adjustment  not 
beneficial.  The  constitution  of  an  atom,  however,  is  such 
as  to  render  it,  so  far  as  we  can  judge,  independent  of  all 
the  dangers  arising  from  the  struggle  for  existence. 
Plausible  reasons  may,  no  doubt,  be  assigned  for  believ- 
ing that  if  the  constants  had  varied  from  atom  to  atom 
through  any  sensible  range,  the  bodies  formed  by  aggre- 
gates of  such  atoms  would  not  have  been  so  well  fitted 
for  the  construction  of  the  world  as  the  bodies  which 
actually  exist.  But  as  we  have  no  experience  of  bodies 
formed  of  sucli  variable  atoms  this  must  remain  a  bare 
conjecture. 

"  Atoms  have  been  compared  by  Sir  J.  Herschel  to 
manufactured  articles,  on  account  of  their  uniformity. 
The  uniformity  of  manufactured  articles  may  be  traced 
to  very  different  motives  on  the  part  of  the  manufacturer. 
.  .  .  There  are  three  kinds  of  usefulness  in  manufactured 
articles  :  cheapness,  serviceableness,  and  quantitative  ac- 
curacy. Which  of  these  was  present  to  the  mind  of  Sir 
J.  Herschel  we  cannot  now  positively  affirm,  but  it  was  at 
least  as  likely  to  have  been  the  last  as  the  first,  though  it 
seems  more  probable  that  he  meant  to  assert  tliat  a  num- 
ber of  exactly  similar  things  cannot  be  each  of  them 
eternal  and  self-existent,  and  must  therefore  have  been 
made,  and  that  he  used  the  phrase  'manufactured  ar- 
ticle '  to  suggest  the  idea  of  their  being  made  in  great 
numbers."^ 

I'-Atom,"'  in  Encyclopmlia  Britannica,  Kinth  Edition. 


THE   TELEOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  155 

LIFE. 

Tho  term  "life"  is  a  name  given  to  an  unknown  force 
productive  of  well  known  and  unquestionable  phenomena. 
What  it  is  ^>^r  se  we  know  not.  It  is  something  different 
from  everything  not  designated  by  the  term  itself.  Be- 
tween living  and  dead  matter  there  is  a  chasm  across 
which  science  has  as  yet  shown  no  bridge.  It  has  found 
no  life  not  originating  from  previous  life.  Spontaneous 
generation  is  as  yet  unknown. 

The  force  we  call  life  has  several  clear  and  peculiar 
characteristics.  One  is  its  superiority  to  mere  mechan- 
ism. It  is  itself  the  force  which  detei-niines  the  mechani- 
cal relations  and  combinations  of  atoms,  molecules,  cells, 
and  tissues,  resulting  in  organs  and  organisms  with  their 
functions.  The  life  force,  whatever  it  is,  works  with  the 
elementary  particles,  arranging  them,  accumulating  them, 
and  evolving  them  in  what  we  call  growth.  It  is  allowa- 
ble, indeed,  if  the  mechanical  view  of  nature  is  to 
furnish  our  terminology,  to  call  these  combinations 
"  mechanical,"  as  the  result  of  molecular  collocations  and 
interactions,  or  modes  of  motion.  But  all  attempted 
explanations  of  life  as  mere  mechanism  are  radically 
vicious  by  treating  mechanism  as  the  cause  of  itself, 
or  in  other  words,  shutting  out  of  view  the  necessary 
demands  of  the  law  of  causation.  Life  creates  organs 
for  itself,  transforming  amorphous  masses  into  veritable 
constructions,  of  skilful  co()rdination  and  adaptation.  It 
?/5e.s^  the  principle  of  mechanism  and  subordinates  it  to  its 
own  ends. 

Another  characteristic  is  its  control  of  the  simply  chem- 
ical forces.     The  nature  of  chemical  affinitv  has  been  made 


156  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

evident  in  treating  of  the  combinations  of  oxygen  with 
other  elements.  That  force  plainly  falls  short  of  what  is 
known  as  vitality,  or  life.  No  mere  chemical  interaction 
has  ever  been  known  to  produce  life  or  result  in  it.  Life 
does  not  act  according  to  chemical  formulae,  but  crosses 
them,  and  bends  to  its  own  uses  the  energies  which  these 
formulae  measure.  This  force  seizes  the  chemical  elements 
and  directs  them  in  lines  of  movement  not  only  impossi- 
ble to  chemical  action,  but  reversing  it.  It  builds  up  or- 
ganisms and  keeps  them  in  action  according  to  its  own 
laws.  When,  however,  the  vital  force  ceases,  the  chemi- 
cal forces  come  again  into  ruling  sway,  and  pull  down 
what  life  built  up.  They  attack  the  dead  body  or  tree 
and  reduce  it  to  dust.  The  organic  being  struggles  for 
existence,  and  lives  only  because  the  vital  principle  holds 
the  physical  forces  in  abeyance  and  makes  them  sources 
of  support.  In  a  certain  sense  it  is  the  physical  forces 
that  build  up  all  organic  structures.  Atheistic  scientists 
are  never  done  telling  us  this.  But  these  physical  forces 
serve  this  purpose  only  because,  for  the  time,  they  ^are 
dominated  by  a  superior  force.  The  moment  vitality  is 
gone  they  tear  down  the  body  which  they  were  made  to 
construct.  In  no  just  sense  can  the  chemical  forces,  any 
more  than  the  mechanical,  be  held  to  be  the  same  as  the 
vital,  as  they  thus  stand,  in  some  degree,  at  least,  in  antag- 
onistic relation.  In  the  decay  of  wood  and  of  animal 
matter  the  chemical  process,  in  reality,  is  the  same  as 
burning — an  oxidation  of  the  substances.  When  the  al- 
buminous matter  is  large,  as  in  animals,  the  decay  goes  on 
rapidly.  "Life,  during  its  whole  existence,  is  an  untiring- 
builder,  repairing  the  waste  of  the  body;  the  oxygen  of 
the  atmosphere  is  a  fell  destroyer."      When  at  last  the 


THE   TELEOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  157 

builder  ceases,  the  chemical  forces,  acting  alone,  crumble 
the  organism  into  dust.  This  life  force  is  the  latest  born, 
so  far  as,  from  the  geologic  pages,  we  can  read  the  birth 
periods  of  the  forces  tliat  appear  in  nature,  and  the  time 
may  come  when  it  may  vanish  from  our  globe  and  leave 
the  chemical  and  physical  forces  victor  on  the  field.  But 
for  the  present,  it  exists  as  a  superior  form  of  force,  irre- 
ducible to  the  terms  of  any  other,  and  unaccountable  by 
mere  evolution  of  the  physical  and  chemical  forces. 

Final  cause  is  unquestionable  in  the  actings  of  this 
force.  Though  life  appears  in  an  innumerable  variety  of 
forms,  wherever  found  it  moves  with  discriminative  precis- 
ion to  distinct  and  determinate  ends  under  laws  operating 
from  the  initial  or  causal  point.  Each  distinguishable 
species  exhibits  its  own  kind  in  continuous  succession, 
showing  an  adjusted  and  fixed  constitution.  However 
alike  the  initial  form  of  different  species  may  look  at  the 
start,  or  in  inchoate  stages,  the  line  of  movement  never 
falls  into  confusion,  or  issues  in  a  species  not  its  own. 
The  goal  of  the  evolution,  even  in  the  feeblest  germs,  is  so 
firmly  predetermined  as  to  bend  to  its  own  purpose  the 
encountered  action  of  all  the  lower  forces.  It  is  true, 
that  it  is  only  after  life  has  issued  in  a  well  defined  organ- 
ism, that  the  end  becomes  clearly  perceptible  and  impres- 
sive to  the  observer.  In  amorphous  aggregations  of  living 
"  protoplasm,"  or  the  lowest  forms  of  organization,  and  in 
the  simple  cells  and  tissues  of  the  earliest  stages  of 
growth  in  even  the  most  highly  organized  species,  the  se- 
cret of  the  wonderful  adaptation,  with  its  provided  differ- 
entiation into  the  minutest  features  of  the  parent  species, 
is  not  yet  disclosed.  But  when  the  initial  cells  and  form- 
ing tissues  are  unfolded  into  organs,  and  these  correlated 


158  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

into  complete  beings,  then  it  becomes  impressively  sure 
that  the  germs  were  not  fortuitous  complications,  but 
carried  from  the  start  a  purpose  enstamped  on  their  life 
force  and  molecular  structure.  The  potency  and  law  of 
all  that  comes  out  of  them  must  be  in  them  from  their  be- 
ginning—  a  distinct  correlation  to  future,  discriminated, 
and  intelligent  ends. 

A  few  illustrations  will  suffice  to  explain  and  certify 
this  fact.  Take,  for  instance,  the  egg  of  a  bird.  Its  con- 
tents present  only  a  yolk  surrounded  by  the  albumen,  or 
white.  To  the  unaided  eye  they  appear  only  as  two  homoge- 
neous semi-fluid  masses  of  matter.  The  microscope  reveals 
but  little  more.  At  best  it  discloses  no  trace  of  organs,  or 
anything  suggestive  of  the  articulated  structure  into 
which  it  is  to  be  formed.  But  when  the  egg  is  subjected, 
for  a  certain  time,  to  the  proper  degree  of  warmth,  either 
by  the  brooding  of  the  mother  bird  or  by  artificial  heat, 
there  comes  forth  from  that  egg  a  bird  perfect  in  all  its 
parts.  Tiie  life  force,  whatever  it  may  be,  as  an  artificer, 
proceeding  on  a  plan  of  rational  and  systematic  coordina- 
tion of  means  to  ends,  and  of  beginnings  to  specialized 
results,  has  not  only  marshalled  the  molecules  and  con- 
structed a  bony  framework  and  organs  of  circulation,  di- 
gestion, respiration,  of  sight,  hearing,  taste,  and  smell,  and 
manufactured,  of  suitable  tissues,  muscles  and  nerves  of 
sensation  and  motion,  but  has  united  all  these  organs  and 
parts,  witli  tlieir  respective  functions,  into  a  symmetri- 
cally formed  living  bird.  The  process  may  be  watched 
from  day  to  day,  and  from  hour  to  hour,  and  every  step 
may  be  traced  from  the  earliest  segregation  of  the  yolk, 
and  the  faint  outline  of  a  living  form  up  to  the  completion 
of  the  work.     That  the  result  is  already  determined  in  the 


THE    TELEOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  159 

initial  life  of  the  egg  is  evident  from  the  adaptive  forecast 
with  which  the  force  in  the  egg  of  each  species  selects  its 
appropriate  form  of  structure  out  of  numberless  possible 
ones,  and  from  the  discriminated  uniformit}''  and  certaint3' 
with  wliich  it  shapes  all  the  material  into  that  form.  For 
there  are  many  species  or  kinds  of  life,  distinguished  by  char- 
acteristics that  run  through  their  whole  existence  and  rule 
in  the  process  which  forms  each  individual.  Though  the 
contents  of  a  hundred  different  kinds  of  eggs  present  to 
the  eye  of  science  no  perceptible  difference  in  substance 
or  composition,  yet  the  life  germ  of  each  builds  after  its 
own  kind.  That  of  the  eagle  builds  only  an  eagle.  That 
of  the  robin  constructs  a  robin.  In  every  case  the  end  is 
determined  at  the  beginning,  and  the  provision  seeks  and 
effects  the  reproduction  of  the  specific  form  through  a  long 
eclectic  process  that  adjusts  witii  the  finest  precision  every 
bone  and  organ  and  muscle  and  nerve  and  feather  of  the 
complex  organism  to  the  predetermined  model  required  by 
the  interests  of  the  animal. 

As  another  instance,  we  may  take  an  acorn  dropped 
from  the  oak.  The  question  is:  Does  it  reveal  a  real  pro- 
vision for  an  end?  The  acorn  looks  like  only  a  little  dull 
matter,  but  the  law  for  the  oak  of  a  century's  subsequent 
growth  is  written  effectively  in  its  life  force  and  organiza- 
tion. It  contains  a  distinct  provision  for  a  purpose  already 
fixed  and  measured.  Placed  under  right  conditions  of  soil, 
moisture,  and  heat,  it  proceeds  to  show  the  design  wrapped 
up  and  hidden  in  its  living  and  wisely  adapted  germ.  It 
is  potentially  all  that  comes  out  of  it.  Over  against  all 
confusing  forces  of  nature  and  man,  roots  and  trunk  and 
boughs  and  branches  have  all  been  settled  in  the  acorn  as 
certainly  as  the  keeping  of  time  is  settled  in  the  structure 


160  NATURAL    THEOLOGY. 

of  a  watch,  or  the  scanning  of  the  heavens  has  been  pro- 
vided for  in  the  make-up  of  the  telescope.  In  all  the 
manifold  kinds  of  plant  life  each  seed  is  predetermined 
for  the  product  after  its  kind.  Though  the  seed  is  so 
small  as  to  be  almost  microscopic,  the  life  presses  right  on 
across  the  direction  of  all  known  chemistries.  It  takes  up 
the  physical  forces,  and  bends  and  utilizes  them  to  a  dis- 
tinct result  far  above  the  possibilities  of  dead  matter. 

There  is  a  further  fact  included  here,  of  very  clear  and 
positive  significance  —  the  production  of  the  seed  itself. 
It  must  strike  every  thoughtful  mind  as  a  wonderful  fact, 
that,  in  addition  to  this  development  from  seeds,  the  life- 
processes  in  every  tree  and  flower,  and  indeed  in  all  organic 
nature,  go  right  on  and  prepare  seed  for  future  growths, 
year  after  year.  This  is  a  distinct  and  striking  pre- 
arrangement  for  the  future.  We  know  of  no  a  priori  ne- 
cessity in  the  nature  of  atoms  or  molecules,  or  of  living- 
matter,  why  the  dying  plant  or  tree  should  provide  a 
specialized  structure  for  beginning  another,  or  why  the 
vegetation  of  one  summer  should  take  account  for  vegeta- 
tion in  the  next.  That  it  does  so,  however,  is  the  very 
fact  of  nature's  order.  And  the  wisdom  of  the  order  is  as 
clear  as  is  its  adaptive  relation  of  means  to  ends. 

The  whole  realm  of  organic  nature  teems  with  the 
industries  of  this  life  force.  The  earth  is  the  theatre  of 
their  crowded  activity.  They  are  omnipresent  and  cease- 
less. They  move  forward  in  countless  lines  of  systematic 
productive  work.  They  are  adjusted  to  an  intelligent  or- 
der, and  to  rational  and  benevolent  ends.  They  clothe  the 
ground  with  the  green  and  glory  of  millions  of  plants  and 
flowers  and  useful  products.  They  manufacture  food  for 
the  myriads  of  sentient  creatures  that   fill  the  earth  and 


THE    TELEOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  161 

air.  Could  our  ears  catch  the  sound,  they  would  be  filled 
with  the  din  of  the  countless  and  incessant  processes, 
selecting  the  chemical  elements  from  the  air  and  water, 
pumping  the  saps  up  the  veins,  and  elaborating  the  appro- 
priate tissues  of  wood  and  leaf  and  flower  and  seed.  In 
a  higher  range  the  life  force  populates  the  earth  with 
animals  possessed  of  organizations  adapted  to  their  place 
and  prepared  for  an  existence  of  enjoyment.  In  this 
force  the  system  of  nature  is  carried  forward  and  upward 
into  the  higher  grades  which  exhibit  ends  worthy  of  the 
grand  preparation  in  the  long  development  of  the  in- 
organic realm.  The  advent  of  life,  with  its  clear  acting 
for  ends,  reveals  final  cause  for  all  that  preceded  it,  and 
that  would  otherwise  have  failed  to  suggest  the  relation. 
Life  makes  all  nature  luminous  with  purposive  action.  In 
myriad  ways  and  modes  it  is  found  correlated,  not  only  to 
continuance  of  existence,  but  to  the  interests  of  beings 
capable  of  enjoyment  and  happiness.  So  impressive  is  the 
intelligence  with  which  its  force  is  made  to  act,  so  rich  in 
wise  adaptations  are  the  products  of  its  industry,  so  multi- 
plied are  its  omnipresent  wonders,  that  the  observant  mind 
has  always  and  everywhere  recognized  it  as  carrying  on 
and  accomplishing  real  purposes;  and  the  forms  of  speech 
in  every  land  have  been  shaped  to  this  truth.  It  is  not  to 
be  wondered  at  that  when  Von  Hartmann  starts  out  with  an 
atheistic  view  of  the  world,  he  must,  in  writing  a  philoso- 
phy of  "the  Unconscious,"  smuggle  in  some  conception 
of  intelligence  under  this  contradictory  term,  in  order  to 
meet  the  necessity,  still  forced  on  the  reason,  of  postu- 
lating some  intelligent  cause  for  these  irreducible  facts  of 
finality.  Rudolf  Schmid  well  says:  "One  of  the  most 
remarkable  philosophic  testimonies  for  the  right  of  tele- 
11 


162  NATURAL   THEOLOaY. 

ology  is  the  philosophic  system  of  Eduard  Von  Hartmami, 
who,  although  he  calls  his  absolute  the  Unconscious, 
ascribes  to  it  an  unconscious  intelligence  and  an  uncon- 
scious will,  and  makes  the  observation  and  acknowledg- 
ment of  designs  and  ends,  which  he  sees  in  the  whole 
realm  of  the  world  of  phenomena,  an  essential  part  of  his 
entire  system."  ' 

It  is  to  be  disthictly  observed  that  this  conclusion  is 
not  dependent  on  any  particular  theory  of  life.  Whether 
life  be  held  to  be  a  result  of  organization,  or  itself  the 
oro-anizino-  enero;v  —  as  it  certainly  shows  itself  to  be  in 
its  actual  processes  and  work  —  will  make  no  difference. 
Should  the  extremest  suggestion  offered  by  the  "mechan- 
ical theory"  of  nature  be  taken  as  scientific  truth,  that 
what  we  call  life  is  due  to  a  special  mode  of  motion  or  an 
inter-relation  of  atoms  or  molecules,  and  that  there  is 
really  no  essential  difference  between  the  so-called  living 
and  dead  worlds,  the  facts  of  life  would  still  remain  the 
same,  so  far  as  finality  is  concerned.  Should  it  be  ex- 
plained—  though  at  present  there  is  no  prospect  of  its 
being"  so  explained  —  from  the  mere  mechanism  of  atoms, 
still  the  special  determination,  by  its  action,  of  atomic, 
molecular,  and  cellular  structures  to  millions  of  distinct 
and  self-perpetuating  forms  of  organization,  in  which 
complex  parts  are  rationally  correlated  to  each  other  and 
to  useful  and  beneficent  ends,  remains  a  fact.  Out  of  a 
few  simple  elements  this  inscrutable  force  forms  the  whole 
world  of  organized  existences  in  such  clear  subjection  to 
orderly  thought  that  orderly  thought  easily  traces  it  out 
and  exhibits  it  in  the  wonderful  classifications  of  scientific 
systems.  Final  cause  is  not  refuted  by  calling  the  force 
1  The  Theories  of  Darivin,  p.  176. 


THE   TELEOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  163 

"mechanical,"  especially  so  in  view  of  the  fact  that  the 
very  conception  of  mechanism  is  primarily  formed  from  the 
processes  of  human  industry  in  which  intention  controls. 
The  very  roots  of  the  concept  "  mechanical "  stand  in,  as 
they  arose  out  of,  teleological  soil.  Indeed,  man  knows  of 
no  reality  which  he  can  positively  affirm  to  be  outside  of 
all  relation  of  means  and  ends  and  undetermined  by  this 
relation,  from  which  to  form  a  concept  of  mechanism  that 
shall  positively  bar  out  finality.  As  we  know  mechanism, 
it  is  the  product  of  design,  however  destitute  of  conscious 
intelligence  itself  may  be.  And  so,  even  a  mechanical 
explanation  of  life  is  no  disproof  of  design,  and  the 
proper  proofs  of  finality  in  it  would  remain  unimpaired. 

MIND. 

In  psychology,  in  which  we  reach  the  highest  point  in 
the  study  of  finite  existences,  we  reach  also  the  most  un- 
questionable facts  of  finality.  Should  men  deny  final 
causes  in  each  and  all  of  the  phenomena  of  creation 
below  this,  they  cannot  deny  it  here.  For  besides  the 
indubitable  adaptations  in  the  different  powers  of  the 
human  mind  to  one  another  and  all  their  great  functions 
connecting  its  existence  with  the  outer  world,  there  is  a 
conscious  actual  exercise  of  final  cause  by  men  every  day 
and  hour  of  their  waking  lives.  Working  with  aims  is 
the  great  characteristic  of  the  mental  world.  There  are 
three  classes  of  facts  to  be  noticed  in  this  relation. 

1.  Mind  is  alio  ays  acting  vyith  consciousness  of  pur- 
poses. The  grandest  fact  in  human  consciousness,  in 
daily  life,  in  the  world's  history,  is  intentional  action,  pur- 
suit and  accomplishment  of  ends.  Whatever  explanation 
may  be  made  of  the  nature  of  mind,  whether  considered 


164  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

a  different  entit}'-  from  matter,  as  all  the  evidence  shows 
it  to  be,  or  looked  upon,  in  materialistic  view,  as  only  a 
resultant  of  material  organization,  two  facts  remain. 
First,  that  the  mind  is  a  begun  existence.  Thus  its  exist- 
ence comes  under  the  law  of  causation,  and  all  that  is  in 
it  and  all  that  its  action  exhibits  must  be  referred  to  an 
adequate  producing  cause.  Secondly,  that  the  mind  itself 
acts  as  a  final  cause,  exhibiting  phenomena  in  which 
means  are  used  for  predetermined  ends.  If,  therefore,  on 
the  one  hand,  mind  is,  as  we  have  every  reason  to  believe 
it  to  be,  a  different  entity  from  matter,  we  are  face  to 
face  with  the  fact  of  an  originated  existence  or  agent  act- 
ually set,  somehow,  by  its  cause,  to  the  function  of  act- 
ing for  ends.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  should  for  argu- 
ment's sake  consent  to  the  materialist's  assertion  that 
what  we  call  mind  is  a  mere  product  or  manifestation  of 
organized  molecules,  then  right  here  at  the  summit  of 
nature,  nature  pure  and  simple  is  acting  for  ends.  For, 
of  this  acting  in  fact  every  man  is  conscious.  The  effect 
of  the  materialist's  scheme,  in  destroying  the  substantial 
difference  between  mind  and  matter  and  abolishing  free- 
dom, is  to  reduce  mind  to  mere  physics.  It  thus  throws 
all  the  purposive  action  of  man  into  the  domain  of  simple 
nature.  It  cannot,  however,  deny  the  reality  of  such 
purposive  action,  without  denying  the  witness  of  con- 
sciousness, and  so  overthrowing  the  foundations  of  all 
knowledge.  Thus,  in  either  case,  we  have  in  the  human 
mind  an  originated  or  begun  existence,  an  existence  be- 
longing to  the  great  aggregate  of  nature,  that  exhibits  the 
reality  of  the  action  of  final  cause  in  the  world. 

In  view  of  these  facts  one  is  amazed  at  the  fatuity  of 
the   Positive   Philosophy,   and  of  those   who  have  fallen 


THE  TELEOLOGICAL  EVIDENCE.  1G5 

into  its  shallow  absurdity  of  undertaking  to  affirm  tliat 
final  cause  can  nowhere  be  found,  and  the  search  after  it 
is  illusory.  Mr.  J.  S.  Mill  tells  us  that  final  causes  are 
"  unknown  and  inscrutable."  Prof.  Huxley  joins  in 
denouncing  "  the  fruitless  search  after  final  causes  "  and 
"those  hardy  teleologists  who  are  ready  to  break  through 
all  the  laws  of  physics  in  chase  of  their  favorite  will-o- 
the-wisp."  It  is  strange  indeed  that  this  materialistic 
philosophy,  which  seeks  to  wipe  out  the  distinction  be- 
tween mind  and  matter,  has  been  unable  to  find  what 
every  man  is  conscious  of  every  day  and  hour  of  his  wak- 
ing life.  Every  sane  person  is  thoroughly  aware  that, 
with  a  few  insignificant  excej3tions  due  to  weariness  or 
caprice,  he  never  acts,  in  either  great  or  trifling  affairs, 
without  definitely  formed  purposes.  He  is  always  seek- 
ing ends.  He  would  take  it  as  an  insult  to  be  charged 
with  living  or  acting  below  the  rational  grade.  Even  in 
writing  denials  of  final  cause,  men  are  exhibiting  its 
action.  They  act  teleologically  while  they  are  writing- 
down  teleology. 

Probably,  however,  only  anti-teleologists  of  the  extreme 
materialistic  school  mean  to  deny  real  final  cause  in  the 
activity  of  our  minds,  counting  it  an  illusive  resultant  of 
the  mechanism  of  molecules.  Others  admit  that  man 
forms  and  accomplishes  real  purposes,  and  that  the  prod- 
ucts of  the  whole  world  of  human  industry  are  products 
of  design.  They  deny  design  only  for  the  products  of 
nature,  as  distinguished  from  the  products  of  man's  indus- 
try. They  find  in  the  universe  no  pursuit  of  ends  but 
that  of  which  man  is  the  author.  And  they  seem  to 
assume  that  for  the  acting  for  ends  of  which  man  is  con- 
scious, and  for  all  the  results  of  this  action,  we  need  not 


166  KATURAL  THEOLOGY. 

go  back  of  the  human  mind  itself  —  that  we  may  look 
upon  the  mind  as  the  sole  and  absolute  author  of  this 
kind  of  activity,  and  that  somehow  or  other  it  is  all 
explained  in  man's  own  personality  and  freedom.  But 
to  show  the  utter  insufficiency  of  this  explanation,  and  to 
prove  that  the  admission  of  human  design  requires  the 
admission  of  more,  it  is  enough  to  recall  the  fact  that  man 
himself,  being  an  originated  being,  this  capacity  or  func- 
tion of  his  mind  is  itself  an  adaptation  to  ends.  All  the 
adaptations  that  he  originates  are  potentially  included  and 
provided  for  in  the  powers  and  faculties  of  his  mental 
constitution.  His  conscious  action  as  a  final  cause,  and 
the  necessity  so  to  act,  are  simply  two  sides  of  one  great 
reality  in  his  psychical  life.  Not  only  is  action  for  ends 
by  men  the  most  imposing  and  imperial  fact  in  the  world, 
filling  the  earth  with  the  tremendous  energies  which  form 
civilizations  and  make  histories,  but  it  is  a  necessity  which 
arises  out  of  this  very  constitution  given  to  mind.  This 
necessity  is  in  no  way  contradictory  to  man's  real  freedom. 
For  although  he  possesses  freedom,  yet  his  freedom  con- 
sists only  in  choosing  among  ends,  not  in  any  possibility 
of  acting  without  ends.  It  is  impossible  for  man  to  escape 
the  law  of  this  kind  of  action.  If  he  even  attempts  to 
refuse  to  pursue  ends,  his  very  attempt  is  the  action  and 
exhibition  of  a  purpose.  The  mind  is  not  only  adapted  to 
act  for  finality,  but  finality  is  the  very  law  of  its  constitu- 
tion. It  is  not  only  a  possibilUj/  of  his  freedom,  but  a 
necessity  in  his  freedom.  The  constitution  of  the  mind, 
therefore,  itself  embodies  the  principle  and  fact  of  finality. 
As  nature  here  compels  action  for  ends,  all  such  action 
belongs  to  nature's  constitution. 

2.    The  wonderful  adaptatio?i  of  the  miiicVs  j^oioei^s  to 


THE  tp:].eological  evidence.  16'}' 

07ie  another  in  the  unity  of  its  conseiotis  existence,  and  of 
each  and  all  to  t/ie  a(/(/re(/ate  life  to  which  manh  bodily 
oryaniz<(tionfts/ti)n,  lias  always  arrested  the  interest  and 
awakened  the  admiration  of  thoughtful  students  of  psy- 
chology. In  the  great  fundamental  powers  of  the  mind, 
for  instance,  known  as  "  t/ie  intellect,'''  ^'' the  sensibility,^^ 
and  ^'t/te  loill,''''  in  which,  in  orderly  dependent  capacity, 
we  kuoic,  we  feel,  we  vjill,  there  is  a  clear  adjustment  to 
the  end  of  constituting  an  intelligent,  self-determining 
personal  being.  In  this  organization  of  powers  in  the 
unity  of  a  psychical  existence,  there  is  created  the 
highest  form  of  finite  being  of  which  we  have  any  concep- 
tion. There  can  be  no  question  that  these  great  powers, 
intellect,  sensibility,  and  will,  rise  one  above  another  in 
adaptations  marvellously  fitted  to  each  other,  and  with 
functions  all  looking  forward  to  the  great  end  of  person- 
ality. The  finest  adaptations  in  physical  structures  are 
coarse  and  bungling  compared  with  the  fineness  of  the 
correlation  of  these  powers. 

In  the  subdivisions,  also,  of  the  intellectual  power,  the 
sense-perception,  the  memory  and  imagination,  the  fac- 
ulties of  discursive  and  intuitional  thought,  the  same 
principle  of  adaptive  order  holds.  Each  faculty  presents 
in  itself  a  wonderful  provision  for  a  function  useful  to 
man;  and  their  adjustment  to  each  other,  in  relations  of 
interdependence  and  cooperation,  taking  up  and  com- 
pleting each  other's  processes  and  products  in  rational 
results,  carry  up  the  human  constitution  to  the  high  rank 
of  an  intelligent,  self-determining,  moral  being.  Is  it  pos- 
sible to  look  upon  this  personality,  with  its  harmony  and 
consistency  of  co-acting  powers,  as  the  result  of  chance? 
Or  upon  this  intelligence  as  the  product  of  non-intelligent 


168  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

forces  ?  Or  upon  this  liberty  as  the  development  of  neces- 
sity? Is  the  constitution  of  mind,  whose  imperial  charac- 
teristic is  to  act  for  ends,  itself  void  of  a  provided  adapta- 
tion to  the  great  function  it  actually  fulfils  ?  The  fact 
cannot  be  rationally  thus  viewed.  Rather,  all  the  mind's 
powers  reveal  themselves,  in  actual  consciousness,  as  being 
themselves  jDredetermined  for  the  exhibition  of  that  great 
function. 

But  the  mental  constitution  is  suited  also  to  the  capaci- 
ties of  the  bodily  organization.  This  is  a  truth  of  pro- 
founder  significance  than  is  generally  recognized.  The 
physical  organism  is  just  such  as  the  mind's  faculties 
require  to  give  them  full  play  and  exercise.  The  human 
mind  and  body  are  plainly  for  each  other.  It  is  a  shallow 
misconception  that  represents  matter  as  intrinsically  evil 
and  the  body  as  a  clog  or  prison  unsuited  to  the  soul's 
powers.  So  accurately  does  man's  own  body — not  that 
of  an  animal  —  answer  the  soul's  needs  as  an  instrument 
in  every  organ  and  fibre,  that  it  looks  as  if  the  soul  had 
organized  and  moulded  it  all  to  its  own  wants  and  capa- 
bilities. The  bodily  distinctions  of  man  as  separating  him 
from  the  rest  of  the  animal  world,  are  found  to  correspond 
in  exactest  degree  to  the  mental  distinctions  that  separate 
him  from  them.  If  man  is  a  personality,  with  an  outlook, 
in  free  intelligence,  into  possibilities  beyond  mere  animal 
life,  his  body  is  just  as  clearly  an  organ  of  such  personality. 
If  the  human  mind  were  furnished  with  only  an  animal's 
body,  even  that  of  the  anthropoid  apes,  said  to  be  so  simi- 
lar to  man's  organization,  such  body  would  indeed  be 
a  hindrance,  an  incapacitating  bondage,  nullifying  the 
mind's  powers  and  reducing  them  to  helplessness.  For 
instance,  with  only  an  ape's   hind   feet  for  feet,  and  an 


THE  TELEOLOGICAL   EVIDENCE.  169 

ape's  fore  feet  for  liaiids,  the  human  mind  would  be  help- 
less before  all  the  great  tasks  of  life,  its  mechanical  indus- 
tries would  be  impossible,  civilizations  would  be  swept 
away,  and  the  scientific  faculties  buried  as  in  a  tomb. 
The  mind's  faculties  would  have  no  adequate  instruments 
with  which  to  move  forth  into  developed  power  and  fruits. 
On  the  other  hand,  were  an  animal,  even  the  highest  below 
man,  furnished  with  a  man's  mind,  the  gift  would  be  worse 
than  in  vain.  But  man's  nature  presents  no  such  unad- 
justed conjunction  of  mental  and  physical  constitutions, 
in  which  the  bodily  organ  is  a  useless  instrument,  or  the 
mind  a  mighty  and  grand  capacity  disabled  and  made 
prisoner  in  an  unfit  structure.  It  presents  the  happy 
adaptation  in  wliich  mind  and  its  organ  are  manifestly 
made  for  each  other.  The  aggregate  life  for  which  man's 
bodily  organization  prepares  him  is  just  the  life  which  the 
mind's  lofty  capacities  and  powers  can  employ,  utilize,  and 
bring  into  full  fruitage  of  good. 

3.  The  laios  of  pure  thought,  i.e.,  the  established  and 
necessary  modes  and  products  of  our  rational  faculties,  are 
found  to  tally,  in  most  imjyressive  accuracy,  vylth  the 
realities  found  in  the  n?iiverse  around  us.  Truth,  as 
found  in  the  mind's  own  action,  is  found  to  be  truth  in  the 
great  cosmos  without.  Thus  our  knowledge  is  real  knowl- 
edge. For  it  is  of  the  very  essence  of  knowledge  that  it 
knows  a  reality.  Otherwise  it  is  not  knowledge.  And 
the  point  to  be  noticed  is  that  our  pure  thought-processes, 
starting  from  the  phenomena  of  experience,  but  going  far 
beyond  them,  guided  by  the  intuitions  of  the  reason,  reach 
necessary  conclusions  which  are  found  to  express,  not  fic- 
tions, but  great  realities  long  before  actualized  in  the 
plan  and  facts  of  the  universe. 


170  KATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

To  explain  this  a  few  facts  in  psychology  must  be  re- 
called :      (1)    The  mind  gains  its  earliest  knowledge  through 
the  powers  of  sense-perception  and  consciousness.     These 
furnish  a  knowledge  of  material  things  and  of   psychical 
acts.      (2)    By  the  power  of  representation,  in  which  the 
mind    recalls    and    reknows    the    objects    of    presentative 
knowledge,  in  the  forms  of  memory  and  imagination,  it 
accumulates    and  commands  its  acquisitions  of    empirical 
knowledge  for  the  use  of  the  thought-power.      (3)    The 
powers  of  thought  now  proceed,  through  acts    of    judg- 
ment, analysis,  comparison,  and  synthesis,  to  form    con- 
cepts or  general  notions.     In  these  the  relations  of  mate- 
rial and  psychical  phenomena  are  generalized  in  forms  of 
thought.     Guided  by  certain  a  ^>r^'or^■  relations  and  prin- 
ciples, intuitively  evident,  such  as  the  relations  of    sub- 
stance and  attribute,  cause    and    effect,  time  and  space, 
means  and  end,  the  thought-power  develops  the  logical 
processes  of  inductive  and  deductive  reasoning.     It    de- 
termines the  laws  of   logic,   which,  indeed,  are    but    the 
fixed  and  necessary  principles  and  processes  of  thinking. 
Especially  out  of  the  time  and  space  relations,  this  power 
develops  the  mathematical  concepts  of  number  and  mag- 
nitude and  the  axioms  and  truths  of  mathematical  reason- 
ing   and  conclusion.      Under  its  own  necessary  and  uni- 
versal laws  thought  thus  constructs  the  entire  science  of 
pure  mathematics.     It  determines  relations  that  are  nec- 
essarily and  forever  true  in  pure  thought.     It  is  in  the 
applications  of  mathematical    truth    to    the  facts   of    the 
physical  universe  that  the  adaptations  in  the  constitution 
of  the  mind  become  most  conspicuously  manifest. 

To    a  full    understanding    of    this    a  few  other  things 
must   be    remembered.     First,  that  the  idea  of    number, 


THE  TELEOLOGICAL   EVIDENCE.  171 

which,  along  with  symmetry,  is  inherent  in  the  mind,  is 
developed,  not  from  without,  but  from  within.  It  arises 
when  in  consciousness  we  are  aware  of  psychical  acts  or 
states  of  greater  or  less  continuance,  in  connection  with 
the  continuing  identity  of  the  ego  as  the  conscious  agent, 
the  succession  or  repetition  of  these  psychical  acts  becom- 
ing the  occasion  of  the  idea  of  time  as  their  necessary 
condition.  Occurring  once,  twice,  or  oftener,  they  intro- 
duce the  conception  of  number,  out  of  which,  as  a  time- 
relation,  all  arithmetical  and  algebraic  mathematics  are 
developed.  These,  therefore,  are  a  product  of  the  mind's 
own  creative  power,  under  its  own  subjective  and  nec- 
essary laws  of  thought.  "  Pure  arithmetic  and  algebra 
deal  only  with  ideal  concepts  conditioned  on  ideal  time." 
Though  developed  on  occasion  of  experience,  their  results 
go  far  beyond  experience,  and  stand  for  truths  which  the 
human  mind  determines  must  hold  everywhere  and  for- 
ever. Secondly^  the  whole  science  of  geometrical  quan- 
tities and  relations  is  equally  a  product  of  the  mind. 
Geometry  is  not  the  science  of  the  relations  of  space, 
but  of  the  relations  conceived  possible  in  space.  It 
assumes  pure  space  in  which  it  places  its  ideal  creations. 
The  geometrical  concepts  are  all  idealized.  For  example, 
the  mathematical  "  point,"  the  mathematical  "  line,"  the 
mathematical  "surface,"  are  never  known  as  physical 
realities.  They  are  not  things  seen  or  imaged.  The 
point,  as  position  without  extension,  or  the  line,  without 
breadth  or  thickness,  is  not  known  to  our  senses.  The 
point  is  a  zero  of  magnitude  —  yet  it  is  not  nothing. 
"Nothing  is  nowhere,  but  the  point  is  somewhere."  The 
mind,  starting  from  experiences  of  extended  material 
objects,  goes  beyond  experience    and  creates  these  con- 


172  KATURAL  THEOLOGY. 

cepts  as  the  starting  points  for  true  reasoning,  or  the 
beginnings  of  thought-processes,  through  which  are  built 
up  coherent  and  far-reaching  systems  of  ideal  truth. 
With  these  beginnings,  the  pointy  the  line,  the  surface, 
the  triangle,  and  solid,  and  the  axioms  of  pure  thought, 
the  mind  goes  into  space  or  vacancy,  and  determines, 
among  motions,  divisions,  and  relations  conceivable  in  it, 
what  must  be  ideally  and  forever  true  of  them.  It  thus 
forms  a  science  of  the  possible  and  necessary  relations  of 
existences  in  space.  It  is  true  that  many  of  the  geome- 
ter's a  priori  laws,  as  well  as  his  concepts,  have  been  sug- 
gested by  actual  forms  in  nature.  Knowledge  starts  in 
knowing  concrete  realities.  But  the  thought,  acting  on 
these  suggesting  forms,  creates  ideal  products  and  ex- 
tends conclusions  beyond  the  observed  phenomena,  and 
reaches  necessary  and  universal  principles  of  being.  The 
whole  system  of  geometrical  truth,  as  well  as  of  arith- 
metical, is,  therefore,  a  creation  of  thought  under  the 
laws  of  subjective  mental  action. 

Now  the  impressively  significant  thing  is  that  these 
truths  which  thus  come  out  of  the  mind,  when  applied  to 
nature  are  found  to  tally  with  the  realities  in  the  actual 
structure  of  the  universe.  Mind  and  matter,  two  realities 
known  in  sense-perception  and  consciousness  as  actually 
existing,  if  anything  is  known  to  exist,  though  possessing 
no  common  attributes,  and  incapable  of  being  resolved 
into  one  and  the  same  thing,  are  yet  found  perfectly 
adapted  to  each  other  in  all  the  laws  which  respectively 
regulate  them  in  their  independent  action.  The  laws 
that  appear  in  the  one  answer  to  the  laws  that  hold  in 
the  other.      This  fact  is  illustrated  on  every  hand: 

It  appears  in  the  law  of  equivalents  and  midtiple  p)ro- 


THE   TELEOLOGICAL   EVIDENCE.  173 

2)ortions,  under  which  all  chemical  combinations  are 
found  to  occur.  The  uniting  atomic  weights  conform  to 
a  mathematically  ascertained  order.  AVhat  the  laws  of 
thought  require  for  true  numerical  ratios  or  proportions 
is  discovered  to  be  the  actual  rule  under  which  nature 
works  in  her  great  chemical  laboratory.  The  subjective 
movements  of  mind  and  the  objective  movements  of 
physical  substances  recognize  common  standards. 

It  is  seen  in  crystaUization.  "  Crystals,  we  are  told, 
may  be  studied  from  two  points  of  view;  first,  as  prod- 
ucts of  pure  thought,  like  the  solids  of  geometry;  and, 
secondly,  as  objects  of  natural  history;  and  the  speci- 
mens found  in  nature,  as  far  as  examined,  are  discovered 
to  correspond  to  the  deductions  of  geometry."  In  the 
relations  of  their  sides  and  angles,  they  are  expressible  in 
the  formula3  of  mathematical  proportions.  Crystalliza- 
tion is  found  to  take  place  according  to  the  laws  of 
orderly  thought. 

The  laws  of  sound  are  reducible  to  mathematical  state- 
ment. The  harmonies  of  music  are  well  known  to  arise 
from  certain  fixed  ratios  in  the  vibrations  of  sonorous 
bodies.  These  ratios  correspond  to  the  orderly  relations 
called  for  in  arithmetical  thought.  The  laws  of  the 
mind's  knowing  and  of  the  world's  constitution  answer  to 
each  other  in  this. 

Vegettdde  groioth  conforms  to  this  principle  of  numer- 
ical symmetry.  The  leaves  of  plants  are  always  arranged 
in  spirals  about  the  stem;  and  both  the  number  of  leaves 
and  the  number  of  turns  of  the  spiral  are  always  the  same 
for  any  given  plant.  A  comparison  of  different  plants  shows 
that  these  numbers,  whatever  they  may  be,  stand  in  the  re- 
lation of   an  orderly  proportion.     The   simplest   arrange- 


174.  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

ment  is  that  in  which  there  are  two  leaves  for  each  turn  of 
the  spiral;  another  arrangement  completes  the  turn  with 
three;  still  another  completes  two  turns  with  five  leaves. 
Taking  various  jDlants  and  writing  out  the  relations  be- 
tween the  number  of  leaves  and  turns  of  the  spiral,  we 
obtain,  in  succession,  the  fractions  J,  ^,  f,  |,  y^g,  -g^-,  ^j, 
and  1^,  a  regularly  ascending  series  in  which  any  two 
combined  will  make  the  next,  while  the  numerator  of  any 
one  added  to  the  denominator  of  the  preceding  gives  the 
denominator  of  the  fraction  whose  numerator  is  em- 
ployed. These  numerical  relations  are  found  holding  in 
tlie  scales  of  every  cone  and  bud,  in  the  order  of  the 
bracts  about  the  blossoms  of  the  daisy,  and  in  the  posi- 
tion of  every  leaf  on  every  plant.  They  do  not  belong 
only  to  the  present  flora  of  our  globe.  They  are  found 
in  fossil  botany.  Plants  have  been  constructed  on  the 
same  general  plan  from  the  beginning.  The  same  mathe- 
matical spiral  which  regulates  the  formation  of  a  pine 
cone  in  one  of  our  own  woods  governed  their  formation 
in  the  earliest  geological  forests  which  we  dig  up  from 
beneath  hundreds  of  feet  of  solid  rock. 

When  we  pass  out  into  the  distant  regions  of  astro7i- 
omi/,  we  find  the  most  impressive  examples  of  the  fact  we 
are  illustrating.  In  the  solar  system,  the  intervals  between 
the  planets,  with  the  exception  of  Neptune,  go  on  doubling, 
or  nearly  so,  as  we  recede  from  the  sun.  And  when  we 
compare  t\\e  i^er iodic  times  oi  their  revolutions,  beginning 
with  the  most  distant,  we  discover  that  we  have  for  Uranus 
about  one-half  that  of  Neptune,  for  Saturn  one-third  that 
of  Uranus,  for  Jupiter  two-fifths  that  of  Saturn,  for  the 
asteroids  three-eighths  that  of  Jupiter,  for  Mars  about 
five-thirteenths   that   of   the    asteroids,   for  Venus  eight- 


THE    TELEOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  175 

twenty-firsts  that  of  Mars,  and  for  Mercury  about  thirteen- 
thirty-fourtlis  of  that  of  Venus.  The  time  of  the  earth  is 
slightly  exceptional.  Writing  out  the  numbers  of  this 
order, 

1       1       2       3       ^5_      _8         13 

25    "S?    '5'     8?     13'     2  1'     3¥' 

and  comparing  them  with  those  in  vegetation,  it  is  seen 
that  we  have  the  same  series  of  fractions  in  the  arrange- 
ment of  leaves  on  plants  and  in  the  periods  of  the 
heavenly  bodies.  The  mental  order  that  fixes  mathe- 
matical formuhi?  serves  to  express  the  facts  not  only  in 
nature  immediately  around  us,  but  in  the  movements  of 
far-off  worlds.  There  is  thus  seen  to  be  an  exact  adapta- 
tion of  the  laws  of  mind  to  the  realities  of  the  objective 
constitution  of  the  universe.  The  sciences  are  all  crystal- 
lizing in  mathematical  form.  We  can  take  these  creations 
of  pure  thought  from  human  mind,  and  measure  the 
actual  distances  and  motions  in  the  far-away  heavens, 
determine  the  planetary  orbits,  future  conjunctions  of 
starry  worlds,  and  eclipses  that  will  be  visible  in  centuries 
to  come.  The  mind's  products  are  adjusted  by  its  laws 
into  the  same  mould  as  the  realities  of  the  universe  are  by 
theb'  laws.  This  is  not  only  a  fact  of  amazing  adaptation 
of  the  independent  action  of  the  mind  to  the  realities  of 
the  cosmic  system,  but  one  that  clearly  points  to  the  intel- 
lectual Cause  of  the  universe.  It  exhibits  thought  answer- 
ing to  thought.  The  universe  is  constructed  according  to 
mental  laws.  The  a  priori  truths,  intuitively  appearing 
as  necessary  in  mathematical  relations  in  time  and  space, 
are  found  to  have  been  actualized  in  the  universe  from  the 
beginning.  "Plato's  conic  sections  and  Euclid's  division 
into  extreme  and  mean  ratio  were  made  and  used  long 


176  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

before  the  days  of  Plato  or  Euclid,  in  the  forms  of  earth 
and  the  orbits  of  the  heavenly  bodies." 

Here  we  must  close  these  illustrations  of  final  cause 
in  nature.  They  might  be  continued  to  any  extent,  for 
nature  is  jewelled  with  them  everywhere.  Acting  for 
ends  is  an  omnipresent  feature  in  the  constitution  and 
movement  of  the  world.  Nature  is  conceded  to  be  a  great 
system,  in  well  adjusted  and  consistent  unity;  and  when 
final  cause  is  found  to  be  the  determining  cause  in  one 
part,  it  means  that  this  principle  pervades  it  everywhere, 
and  gives  the  universal  order  and  consistency.  These 
examples,  therefore,  are  sufficient  —  typical  of  nature's 
whole  method.  They  leave  no  room  whatever  to  doubt 
the  point  which  it  has  been  the  sole  object  of  this  section 
to  establish,  that  nature  does  exhibit  facts  of  finality, 
facts  so  clear,  constant,  and  pervading  as  to  prove  finality 
to  be  an  unquestionable  principle  of  its  action. 

SECTION    III. 

Final  Cause  ix  Nature  Demands  Intelligence 
AND  Will. 

The  point  to  be  shown  in  this  section  is  that  these 
adjusted  adaptations  in  nature  must  be  referred  to  an 
intelligent  predetermining  Will.  Finality  has  its  neces- 
sary correlate  in  intent ionalit y .  This  identifies  the  cause 
as  a  Personal  Being. 

In  the  face  of  the  spontaneous  conclusion  men  draw 
from  adaptation  to  a  designer,  it  may  seem  almost  super- 
fluous to  go  through  the  labor  of  presenting  reasons  to 
sustain  this  further  and  concluding  point  in  the  teleo- 
logical    syllogism.      That    "design,"    in    the    sense    of    a 


THE   TELEOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  177 

structured  adaptation  of  means  to  an  end,  implies  a 
designer,  seems  so  nearly  a  self-evident  proposition,  that 
we  are  at  first  at  a  loss  to  understand  how  there  can 
be  any  room  for  doubt,  or  for  proof  to  remove  doubt. 
But,  as  already  mentioned,  a  real  distinction  is  asserted, 
and  objectors  claim  that  the  proof  of  adaptations  in 
nature  is  still  short  of  the  proof  of  an  intelligent 
author.  For  instance,  Hume  says,  in  substance:  "The 
argument  from  design  is  simply  analogical.  But  we  have 
no  right  to  assume  that  because  we  know  from  experience 
that  houses,  ships,  watches,  or  other  arrangements  which 
we  produce  in  the  order  of  the  world  about  us  are  due  to 
this  cause,  therefore  this  is  the  only  cause  that  can  pro- 
duce orderly  arrangement.  For  aught  we  know,  there 
may  be  other  causes  besides  mind  for  orderly  arrange- 
ment—  that  to  make  the  kind  of  causation  we  find  in 
ourselves  the  necessary  cause  for  the  order  of  the  whole 
system  of  things  is  to  make  man  the  measure  of  the  uni- 
verse." '  J.  S.  Mill  repeats  the  objection,  and  calls  the 
conclusion  which  assumes  mind  as  the  only  possible  cause 
of  acting  for  ends  "an  outrageous  stretch  of  inference." 
The  amount  of  the  objection  in  this  form,  it  will  be 
observed,  offers  no  positive  disproof  of  the  dependence  of 
finality  on  an  intelligent  cause,  but  only  suggests  that 
there  may  be  some  other  cause  for  it,  only  raises  a  faint 
or  possible  doubt,  and  then  claims  that  the  theistic  con- 
clusion falls  short  of  a  full  demonstration.  This  claim 
is  helped  into  plausibility  by  pantheistic  or  semi-panthe- 
istic philosophies.  The  soul  of  nature  is  represented 
as  itself  the  principle  of  all  things,  working  not  as  a 
transcendent  God,  but  as  an   internal  or  immanent  blind 

1  Dialogue  concerninq  Natural  Religion. 


178  JS'ATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

principle.  Tliis  is  the  substance  of  explanation  by 
Hegel's  "idea,"  and  by  Schopenhauer's  unconscious 
"will."  The  theories  emphasize  all  the  facts  of  con- 
trast between  nature  and  art.  They  point  out,  espe- 
cially, that  the  finality  which  works  in  man's  industry 
is  external  to  its  product.  But  in  nature  it  is  internal, 
working  as  an  inward  force.  Instinct  is  given  as  the 
completest  type  of  the  process.  It  is  illustrated  also 
in  the  production  of  organisms.  In  these  the  movement 
is  inherent  and  self-contained.  In  this  difference  it  is 
claimed  that  the  true  analog}^  between  human  industry 
and  nature's  products  is  broken.  Human  mechanism  pro- 
duces nothing  that  shows  this  peculiar  immanent  force; 
nature's  works  are  characterized  by  this,  and  thus  show 
the  possible  action  of  a  principle  other  than  mental  in- 
tentionality,  which  in  itself  must  suffice  for  all  that  it 
does.  Tiie  "end"  is  not  sought  or  found  by  any  intel- 
ligent or  conscious  apprehension  and  pursuit,  but  appears 
out  of  the  eternal  conformity  of  things  to  their  simple 
essence.  "In  nature  the  cause  attains  its  end  by  self- 
development," 

Leading  materialists  have  been  endeavoring  to  reinforce 
this  denial  of  an  intelligent  cause  for  finality  by  claiming 
that  the  modern  hypothesis  of  evolution  suggests  how 
conformity  to  the  end  in  organisms  can  originate  without 
any  intermingling  of  an  intelligence,  by  the  blind  admin- 
istration of  a  law  of  nature.  A  fortuitous  development 
in  atomic  and  molecular  structure,  under  a  law  of  sur- 
vival of  forms  best  fulfilling  conditions  of  stability,  it  is 
asserted,  is  sufficient,  in  its  action  from  an  infinitely 
remote  past,  to  have  fixed  those  formations  which  now 
look  like  intended  adaptations  in  the  midst  of  the  whole 


THE    TELEOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  179 

evolution.  It  is  all  credited  as  a  mere  result  of  laws  inhe- 
rent in  the  blind  movement.  The  only  finality,  it  is  said, 
is  the  finality  of  the  forces  immanent  or  inherent  in  matter 
itself.^  Hi^?ckel  says:  "The  history  of  evolution  convinces 
us  that  the  highly  purposive  and  admirably  constituted 
sense-organs,  like  all  other  organs,  have  developed  v^ithout 
premeditated  aim."  It  is  needful,  therefore,  to  consider 
this  point  and  complete  the  teleological  argument  by  pre- 
senting some  of  the  evidence  on  M^hich  we  are  justified  in 
taking  the  actual  finality  found  to  pervade  nature  as  the 
proper  and  sufficient  proof  of  a  supreme  intelligent  First 
Cause. 

1,  The  first  thing  to  be  considered  is  that  intelligence 
is  at  once  the  natural  explanation  of  adaptation  of  means 
to  ends,  and  the  only  cause  of  lahich  we  hnow.  We 
know  mind,  as  an  intelligent,  voluntary  agent,  to  be  the 
cause  of  design  continually.  We  know  this  by  conscious- 
ness. If  we  do  not  know  this,  we  know  nothing;  our 
knowledge  is  actual  zero.  By  observation  and  the  commu- 
nications of  our  fellow-men,  we  know  them  to  be  the  au- 
thors of  arrangement  and  contrivance.  Personality,  or 
intelligent  will,  has  filled  all  lands  and  all  centuries  with 
purposive  activities  and  structured  works.  The  character- 
izing feature  of  the  products  of  human  industry  is  that 
they  reveal  a  designer  at  every  point,  and  establish  the 
law  of  finality  as  a  law  of  mind.  They  identify  adapta- 
tion to  ends  as  a  mental  function.  If  we  wish  to  know 
the  source  of  objective  design,  z.e.,  of  planned  structures, 
we  always  find  it,  through  the  entire  range  of  the  world's 
activity  in  all  times  and  climes,  in  a  designing  intelligence, 
and  in  this  alone.      Even  on  the  mere  ground  of  induction, 

I  See  Albert  Laugc's  History  of  Materialism  (Houghton,  MiHliu  &  Co  ),  Vol. 
m,  pp.  26-80. 


180  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

therefore,  there  would  be,  to  say  the  least,  as  much  force 
and  validity  in  this  proof  as  for  any  scientific  conclusion 
whatever.  For  the  induction  is  complete  and  universal, 
unembarrassed  by  a  single  contrary  fact  for  a  counter  in- 
duction. The  unbroken  experience  and  knowledge  of  the 
race  have  found  adaptive  industries  explained  only  in 
intelligence.  We  know  mind  to  be  a  cause  that  acts  for 
ends  through  adaptation  of  select  means,  and  we  know  of 
no  other  cause.  Consciousness  reveals  no  other.  Science, 
working  down  among  elements  and  molecules,  and  up  to 
suns  and  stellar  systems,  detects  no  other.  The  supposed 
possibility  of  any  other  is  sustained  by  no  evidence  what- 
ever. The  suggestion  has  nothing  to  back  it.  Mind, 
therefore,  has  been  left  to  us  as  the  only  known  cause  or 
explanation  of  speciahzed  adaptation  and  structure.  It  is 
surely  scientific  to  follow  where  the  whole  induction  points. 
It  is  absurdly  irrational  to  reject  this  in  favor  of  some 
utterly  unknown  but  supposed  possibility. 

So  directly  does  this  become  the  rational  and  necessary 
interpretation  of  finality,  that  opponents  of  the  argument 
are  compelled  to  concede  its  weight.  For  instance,  J.  S. 
Mill,  though  he  has  represented  it  as  involving  "  an  outra- 
geous stretch  of  inference,"  feels  forced  to  admit  that  de- 
sign has  not  been  eliminated  from  nature,  or  the  necessity 
of  referring  it  to  intelligence  overcome.  In  his  Essays 
on  Religion,  he  says:  "The  particular  combination  of 
organic  elements  called  the  eye  had,  in  every  instance,  a 
beginning  in  time,  and  must,  therefore,  have  been  brought 
together  by  a  cause,  or  causes.  The  number  of  instances 
is  immeasurably  greater  than  is,  by  the  principles  of  the 
inductive  logic,  required  for  the  exclusion  of  a  random 
concurrence   of  independent   causes,  or,  speaking  techni- 


THE   TELEOLOGICAL   EVIDENCE.  ISl 

cally,  for  tlie  elimination  of  chance.  We  are,  therefore, 
warranted  by  the  canons  of  induction  in  concluding  that 
what  brought  all  these  elements  together  was  some  cause 
common  to  them  all;  and  inasmuch  as  the  elements  agree 
in  the  single  circumstance  of  conspiring  to  produce  sight, 
there  must  be  some  connection  by  way  of  causation  be- 
tween the  cause  which  brought  these  elements  together 
and  the  fact  of  sight.  .  .  .  The  natural  sequel  to  the  ar- 
gument would  be  this:  Sight,  being  a  fact  not  precedent 
but  subsequent  to  the  putting  together  of  the  organic 
structure  of  the  eye,  can  only  be  connected  with  the  pro- 
duction of  that  structure  in  the  character  of  a  final,  not 
an  efficient  cause.  But  this  at  once  marks  the  origin  as 
proceeding  from  an  intelligent  Will." 

The  force  of  this  evidence  is  increased  by  the  discrim- 
inating recognition  which  mind  has  for  its  own  peculiar 
working  and  products.  It  includes  not  simply  the  fact 
that  we  know  intelligence  to  be  a  cause  of  specialized 
adaptations,  and  we  know  of  no  other,  but  still  more,  that 
in  those  processes  of  finality  found  in  nature  the  human 
mind'directly  and  positively  recognizes  the  intelligence  it 
is  compelled  to  postulate.  Spontaneously  mind  knows  its 
own  everywhere,  discriminating  it  by  direct  insight  from 
every  other  kind  of  working.  In  knowing  itself  it  has 
fellowship  with  universal  mind.  When  it  meets  mind, 
wherever  acting,  it  recognizes  it.  We  thus  not  only 
know  it  to  be  a  cause  of  adaptation  of  means  to  purposed 
ends,  beyond  which  we  know  of  no  other,  but  we  identify 
its  presence  by  a  kind  of  intuitive  necessity.  We  do  not 
simply  infer  that  intelligence  must  be  working  here,  but 
we  find  it  here.  Nature,  in  so  many  of  its  laws  and 
products,  is  so  truly  the  concrete  language  of  adjustive 


182  NATURAL  thp:ology. 

thought,  it  is  so  clearly  the  engraved  page  of  a  designed 
expression,  the  embodiment  of  a  rational  idea,  that  the 
human  mind  reads  intelligence  there  as  it  reads  it  on  a 
printed  page.  It  is  in  no  unknown  tongue,  but  in  the 
language  of  universal  mind.  The  wisdom  and  working- 
shining  out  from  nature  attest  themselves  as  the  working 
and  wisdom  of  a  Thinker.  In  the  very  adaptation  which 
the  mind  finds  in  itself  to  the  study  and  interpretation  of 
nature,  it  becomes  aware  that  tlie  world  is  a  thought,  an 
actual  expression  of  an  orderly  and  intelligent  plan. 
There  is,  therefore,  one  cause  and  only  one  known  to  the 
human  mind  for  finality,  and  by  spontaneous  rational 
insight  that  is  recognized  and  identified  as  the  actual 
cause.  For  it  is  just  the  signs  of  intelligence  that  the 
mind  finds.  To  deny  the  force  of  this  is  equivalent  to 
asserting  that  unconsciousness  may  act  the  2:)art  of  intel- 
ligence, or  contradictories  may  work  as  the  same. 

We  have  thus,  even  in  this  first  point,  the  natural  and 
legitimate  conclusion  from  the  data  —  a  conclusion  war- 
ranted as  an  induction  from  universal  experience.  No 
scientific  truth  whatever  rests  on  an  induction  so  complete 
and  impressive.  It  is  not,  indeed,  a  "demonstration,"  for 
the  subject  does  not  admit  of  that  kind  of  proof  ;  but  it 
is  the  kind  of  evidence  on  which  all  the  practical  interests 
of  life  are  necessarily  directed.  This  conclusion  as  to  the 
connection  between  intelligence  and  the  pursuit  of  special 
ends  is  the  universal  conviction  of  "the  unsophisticated 
judgment  of  the  race.  And  it  is  the  conclusion,  too,  when 
the  most  careful  scrutiny  is  made  into  the  facts,  and  these 
facts  are  interpreted  by  tlie  best  principles  of  the  induc- 
tive logic.     It  cannot,  therefore,  be  justly  set  aside  until 


THE   TELEOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  183 

objectors  sliall  have  shown  st)me  other  explanation  better 
sustained. 

2.  The  inwianeiiCG  of  finality  in  nature,  offered  as 
obviating  the  necessity  of  a  creative  intelligence,  entirely 
fails  to  answer  the  purpose  for  which  it  is  alleged.  The 
fact  that  the  forces  work  internally  in  nature  is  not  dis- 
puted. We  fully  admit  that  its  finality,  whether  in  organic 
processes  or  in  instincts,  is  accomplished  through  principles 
which  work  from  within.  The  point  of  their  proximate 
action  is  not  from  without.  This  is  one  of  the  acknowl- 
edo-ed  differences  between  the  finalitv  of  nature  and  that 
of  human  mechanism.  The  energy,  whatever  it  may  be, 
works  within  the  processes,  and  not  as  an  artificer  stand- 
ing outside.  In  this  respect  growth  is  different  from  the 
work  of  man's  industry.  The  blind  inner  force  tends  to 
an  end,  as  if  self-moving.  The  actual  process  goes  on  by 
an  interior  principle  —  a  principle  locally  contained  in 
nature  itself.  But  the  insufficiency  of  this  fact,  when 
offered  as  a  solution  supposed  to  nullify  the  need  of  a 
designing  mind,  becomes  clear  in  recalling  three  points: 

(1)  Internal  or  immanent  finality  does  not  necessarily 
mean  a  simply  inimanent  cause.  That  is,  it  does  not 
necessarily  exclude  a  cause  starting  back  of  the  blind 
force  that  is  internally  working  to  its  end.  Examples 
illustrating  the  reality  of  the  agency  of  mind  behind 
processes  that  work  internally  and  blindly  are  about  us 
every  day.  The  chronometer,  acting  in  interior  adap- 
tation for  marking  time  as  if  it  meant  to  do  so,  is  not 
explained  in  its  own  immanent  force  and  action.  The 
finality  has  been  lodged  for  a  time  in  the  intrinsic  struct- 
ure. Though  the  forces  work  interiorly,  they  do  not  ex- 
clude an   intentional   and   transcendent  cause.     Or,  take 


184  NATURAL  THEOLOGY. 

an  illustration  clearly  within  the  sphere  of  nature.  We 
constantly  observe  in  men  action  moving  blindly  or  in- 
stinctively to  useful  ends,  lodged  as  hereditary  mental  and 
dispositional  traits  which  have  been  incorporated  primarily 
by  intentional  activity.  A  similar  result  appears  in  the 
modified  action  of  instinct,  and  even  of  organization  itself, 
under  the  training,  by  man,  of  the  domesticated  animals. 
The  organisms  and  instincts  of  nature  exhibit  no  finality 
that  is  absolute  or  underived,  and  that  may  not  have 
an  intelligent  cause.  Take  an  individual  organism.  The 
individual  is  not  the  cause  of  itself.  Or  a  species  — 
a  species  is  not  its  own  cause.  The  forces  which  work 
immanently  in  both  individuals  and  species  are  not 
absolutely  or  restrictively  immanent.  The  immanence 
found  is  only  relative,  and  thus  does  not  exclude  an 
intentional  cause.  If  it  be  said  that  "a  seed  virtually 
contains  all  the  constituent  parts  of  the  plant  produced 
from  it,  and  that  its  development  is  only  directed  toward 
its  preservation,"  it  is  in  point  to  reply  that  this  finality 
in  the  seed,  not  being  absolute,  may  itself,  with  all  the 
laws  which  have  produced  it,  be  due  to  a  primary  pur- 
posive cause. 

(2)  This  immanent  force,  supposed  to  be  blindly  act- 
ing as  a  final  cause,  not  being  primitive  or  absolute,  but 
derived  and  relative,  not  only  allows  an  intelligent  pur- 
pose as  the  real  cause  behind  it,  but  requires  it,  unless 
unknown  causation  is  preferred  to  knovm.  For,  to  take 
the  best  form  of  such  internal  finality,  instinct,  this,  not 
being  the  cause  of  itself,  is  not  the  full  true  cause  of  its 
products.  It  is  not  a  cause  in  the  real  sense  at  all,  but 
only  a  carrier  of  forces  and  laws  through  a  fixed  movement 
to  its  product.    To  offer  this  as  the  full  account  of  it  is  the 


THE   TELEOLOGICAL     EVIDENCE.  185 

absurdity  of  pointing  to  a  part  of  a  process  as  showing 
the  determining  cause  of  it  all.  For  the  specialized  ends, 
therefore,  to  which  instinct  always  works,  but  of  which  it 
knows  nothing,  we  are  obliged  to  find  a  cause  in  a  con- 
scious intelligence  that  has  organized  the  instinct.  An 
unconscious  intelligence  is  a  contradiction  in  terms,  as 
truly  as  would  be  "  round  squares."  Instinct  itself  is  a 
specialized  adaptation  to  all  that  comes  out  of  it,  and 
needs  itself  to  be  accounted  for.  Its  property  is  that  it 
precisely  resembles  a  work  calculated  and  arranged  be- 
forehand. And  for  the  predetermination  that  acts  in  it 
and  through  it,  intelligence  is  the  natural  and  only  rational 
explanation. 

(3)  The  claim  that  inherent  and  underived  forces  of 
nature  have  produced  the  actual  order  and  adaptations 
of  the  universe,  without  knowing  either  ends  or  means, 
resolves  itself  into  the  theory  of  mere  blind  evolution.  It 
means  that  the  energies  of  matter  moved  to  the  results 
which  have  been  reached  bj^  their  intrinsic  laws  in  self- 
direction  and  self-limitation.  This  theory,  strictly  viewed, 
displaces  final  cause  itself.  Still,  as  it  does  not  destroy  or 
blot  out  the  actual  facts  of  order  and  adaptation  from  the 
world,  it  is  necessary  to  take  the  claim  into  consideration. 
This  claim,  however,  when  examined  in  its  last  analysis,  is 
simply  to  revert  to  the  hypothesis  of  chance.  It  rests  in 
absolute  materialism,  and  sees  in  matter  the  supposed 
"potency  of  all  things."  It  views  the  atoms  as  eternal 
and  having  in  themselves  and  their  underived  modes  of 
motion  and  interaction  the  real  and  only  power  to  which 
the  order  of  the  universe  in  both  nature  and  man  is  to 
be  credited.  Scientific  speculation  shapes  the  theory  vari- 
ously; but  whatever  shape  is  given  to  it,  it  furnishes  no 


186  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

other  solution  of  the  actual  finality  pervading  nature  than 
such  as  leaves  it  fundamentally  the  work  of  chance.  The 
consideration  of  this  must  be  our  next  point. 

3.  That  this  finalit}'  requires  an  intelligent  author  is 
impressively  certain  from  the  fact  that  a  denial  of  such 
cause  throws  us  back  07i  chance.  That  this  is  the  true 
and  inevitable  alternative  to  intentionality  has  already 
been  shown.  Chance  is  no  denial  of  cause,  but  of  design. 
It  means  mere  coincidence,  a  fortuitous  result  of  forces 
acting  without  purpose,  but  giving  origin  to  products  that 
prove  useful,  as  imagined  in  that  kind  of  motion  and 
evolution  wdiich  is  said  to  form  organisms  and  adapt  them 
to  their  actual  ends  without  an}^  guiding  design.  Can  the 
order,  adaptation,  harmony,  and  consistency  of  the  con- 
stitution of  things,  all  its  manifest  subjection  to  the  law 
of  utility  and  beauty,  be  rationally  referred  to  chance? 
This  is  the  question  to  be  answered  at  this  point.  Every 
denial  of  intentionality  for  finality  is  an  affirmation  of  the 
sufficiency  of  chance.  For  there  is  no  other  alternative. 
The  reductio  ad  absurdum,  therefore,  applied  to  this 
affirmation,  will  be  a  proof  of  the  authorship  of  nature  in 
a  creative  intelligence. 

Let  us,  for  argument's  sake,  suppose  matter  to  be  eter- 
nal—  a  supposition,  however,  in  open  conflict  with  all  its 
characteristics  of  finiteness  and  dependence.  The  starting- 
point,  then,  for  our  world  and  the  universe,  as  they  have 
now  come  to  be,  must  have  been  the  potency  of  the  atoms, 
whatever  they  may  be.  There  is  no  cause  back  of  them. 
See  how  the  case  stands.  There  are  countless  millions  of 
millions  of  them.  But  the  universe,  as  we  find  it,  is  man- 
ifestly one,  a  single,  magnificent,  complex,  but  harmonious 
system.     Its  most  impressive  characteristic  is  the  unity  in 


THE   TELEOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  187 

variety  and  tlie  variety  in  unity,  that  mark  it  in  all  its 
parts  and  as  a  stupendous  whole.  The  unity  that  appears 
in  a  single  organ,  say  an  eye,  is  not  more  unquestionable 
than  that  in  which  the  solar  system  acts  together,  or  starry 
systems  unite  with  starry  systems.  How  could  these  at- 
oms, moving  blindly,  form  the  universe  into  such  marvel- 
lous unity  and  order?  There  is  not  a  particle  of  evidence 
that  a  dormant  but  germinal  intelligence  —  the  so-called 
"unconscious  intelligence" — belongs  essentially  to  the 
atoms.  Even  if  it  did  belong  to  them,  it  would  be  un- 
speakably absurd  to  suppose  that  they  could  by  unanimous 
counsel  agree  to  work  to  a  common  plan.  For,  between 
such  rudimentary  or  unborn  intelligence  and  the  counsel, 
thought,  and  forecast  seen  in  nature's  finality,  the  dispro- 
portion is  infinite.  Nothing  short  of  omniscience  itself 
could  have  sufficed  for  the  work  these  atoms  had  on  hand. 
But  could  they  combine  by  mere  chance,  and  by  chance 
interaction  produce  such  a  universe  as  that  in  which  we 
live,  and  of  which  we  form  a  part?  It  is  evident  that 
there  must  be  millions  to  one  against  these  atoms,  as  they 
jostle  age  after  age  together,  producing  even  the  simplest 
structures  or  organisms  that  mark  the  course  of  nature  — 
and  millions  to  one  that  chance  action  of  atoms  would  pull 
down  and  destroy  any  thus  happening  to  occur. 

But  even  were  we  to  suppose,  despite  this  tremendous 
improbability,  that  chance  could  produce  and  continue  in 
existence  some  useful  combinations,  still  the  difficulty  of 
thus  accounting  for  all  the  elaborate  and  beneficent  adap- 
tations which  everywhere  illuminate  nature  would  be  mul- 
tiplied a  thousand  fold  at  every  step  of  the  attempt.  The 
chances  against  the  more  complex  combinations,  depend- 
ent on  the  simpler  and  more  elementary,  and  against  the 


188  N"ATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

stability  of  the  higher,  grow  so  clearly  in  geometrical  pro- 
gression, that  it  soon  becomes  a  mathematical  certainty 
that   without  a  teleological  plan  the  world  must  forever 
remain  a  chaos.     Atheistic  evolutionism  has  sorely  felt  this 
difficulty,  and  to  save  the  case  has  been  wont,  with  other 
expedients,  to  fall  back  on  the  supposed  greatness  of  the 
time.      "  Accidental   variations "    of    accidental    combina- 
tions, becoming,  somehow,  stable  through  their  usefulness, 
surviving  because  of  their  fitness  with  environment,  have 
been  spoken  of  as  able,  in  the  countless  ages  of  the  earth, 
to  kave  transmuted  the  chaos  into  a  cosmos.      But  unfortu- 
nately for  the  hypothesis,  as  has  often  been  pointed  out, 
time,  whose  help  is  supposed  to  suffice,  is  not  a  cause  of 
anything,  but  only  a  multiplier,  and  when,  as  in  this  case, 
what  we  have  to  multiply  is  a  principle  of  confusion,  order 
cannot  be  the  product.'     Time  may  afford  scope  and  field 
for  an  intelligent,  selecting,  arranging,  and  unifying  mind 
to  produce  an  orderly  system,  of  harmonized  parts  and  for 
beneficent  purpose,   but  affords   no  explanation  whatever 
how  chance  movements  of  an  infinity  of  blind  or  even  po- 
tentially conscious  atoms,  could  issue  in  a  universe  whose 
fundamental  and  most  characteristic  action  no  longer  ex- 
hibits any  sign  of  chance.      For,  in  the  genuine  and  best 
inductive    science    and    philosophy    of    to-day    the    word 
"chance"  has   no   place  or  recognition;    it  is  a  thought 
utterly   irreconcilable    with    the    reign    of    wise    law   and 
manifest  order  everywhere. 

Further,  to  set  forth  more  fully,  if  possible,  the  absurd- 
ity of  crediting  the  fortuitous  movements  of  matter,  as  in 
any  atheistic  hypothesis  of  either  ancient  or  modern  evo- 
lution, with  the  production  of  the  present  universe,  so  rich 

1  Wright's  Logic  of  the  Christian  Evidences,  p.  82. 


THE  tp:leological  evidence.  189 

in  wide-reaching  and  marvellous  adaptations,  we  must  put 
it  under  the  light  of  the  mathematical  doctrine  of  chances. 
Take  a  particular  organ  —  the  eye.  In  this  organ  physiol 
ogy  points  out  at  least  thirteen  distinct  particulars,  the 
failure  of  any  one  of  which  would  result  in  failure  of  vis- 
ion. Assuming  the  chance  of  each  of  these  particulars 
being  developed  without  design  in  embryonic  life  to  be 
equal  to  the  chance  of  its  not  being  developed,  and  there- 
fore represented  by  one-half  —  as  of  a  penny's  falling  head 
or  tail  —  then,  since  the  probability  of  the  concurrence  of 
the  thirteen  conditions  is  obtained  by  multiplying  into 
each  other  the  fractions  denoting  the  probability  of  each 
condition  taken  singly,  the  likelihood  of  the  production  of 
the  eye  by  chance  would  be  represented  by  gyVs-  That 
is,  there  would  be  8,192  chances  against  one  of  its  being  so 
made.  This,  however,  would  denote  only  the  improbability 
of  such  origin  of  a  single  eye.  But  eyes  occur  in  pairs  all 
through  nature.  For  the  conjunction  of  the  two,  in  any 
one  person,  that  improbability  would  be  doubled.  Against 
the  repetition  of  the  occurrence  in  the  countless  millions 
of  eyes,  the  chances  would  be  increased  to  inexpressible 
figures. 

But  this  is  only  the  beginning.  For  the  production  of 
any  one  particular  in  the  eye,  thousands  of  molecules  must 
concur  to  the  same  end.  How  little  probability  of  their 
doing  so  accidentally,  will  appear  from  some  mathematical 
calculations  of  the  various  combinations  possible  in  chance 
movements.  The  play  of  combinations  possible  out  of  ten 
different  units,  or  the  number  of  changes  that  may  be 
rung  on  ten  bells,  is  3,628,800.  The  different  combina- 
tions that  may  be  made  with  the  twenty-six  letters  of  the 
alphabet  require  twenty-seven  places  of  figures  to  express 


190  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

them.  Prof.  Jevons  has  calculated  that  in  the  game  of 
whist,  with  a  pack  of  fifty-two  cards,  four  hands  of  thir- 
teen being  held  simultaneously,  the  number  of  distinct 
deals  becomes  so  vast  as  to  require  for  its  statement 
twenty-eight  places  of  figures,  and  says  that  if  the  whole 
population  of  the  world,  say  a  hundred  thousand  millions 
of  persons,  were  to  deal  cards  day  and  night  for  a  hun- 
dred millions  of  years  they  would  not  in  that  time  have 
exhausted  a  hundred  thousandth  part  of  the  possible 
deals.  It  seems  in  the  highest  degree  improbable  that 
one  game  of  whist  has  ever  been  exactly  like  another,  ex- 
cept by  intention.'  In  the  light  of  such  figures,  express- 
ing the  almost  infinite  uncertainties  of  the  play  of  random 
combinations,  the  improbability  becomes  evident,  that  the 
countless  molecules  should  fortuitously  combine  to  produce 
the  finely  ordered  and  adjusted  parts  of  the  eye,  or  that 
all  the  different  and  needful  chemical  elements  should 
thus  unite,  in  their  proportionate  quantities,  to  form  each 
and  all  of  the  organs,  and  the  union  of  organs,  in  the 
body. 

To  understand  the  nature  of  the  problem  it  must  be 
remembered  that  the  molecules  are  combined  not  only  in 
different  numbers  and  proportions,  but  in  successive  accu- 
mulations, each  union  becoming  a  unit  for  a  further  and 
dependent  union.  The  primary  unions  are  only  the  begin- 
ning of  nature's  action.  Unions  are  built  on  unions,  in 
increasing  complexity,  system  on  system.  The  atoms 
combine  in  molecules,  the  molecules  form  cells,  the  cells 
build  organs,  the  organs  arrange  themselves  cooperatively 
into  organisms  or  individuals,  and  the  individuals  form  a 
dualism  for  the  continuance  of  races.  Each  step  in  the 
\  Principles  of  Science,  Vol.  I,  p.  31 7. 


THE    TELEOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  191 

order  of  dependent  correlations  passes  into  vaster  ranges 
of  the  play  of  permutation.  Take,  in  illustration,  the 
unities  which  may  be  made  with  the  twenty-six  letters  of 
our  alphabet.  With  these  may  be  formed  several  trillions  of 
words.  With  these  words  may  be  constructed  an  im- 
mensely larger  number  of  sentences.  With  these  sentences 
a  still  greater  number  of  books  can  be  made.  With  these 
books  still  a  higher  diversity  of  libraries.  This  last  is  what 
mathematicians  call  a  combination  of  the  "fifth  order." 
An  example  of  this  is  given  in  the  arrangement  of  two 
units  in  all  possible  ways  in  ascending  rank:  First  step,  2; 
next  step,  4;  third  step,  16;  fourth  step,  65,536;  fifth 
step,  65,536  twos  multiplied  together,  making  a  number 
so  great  as  to  require  19,729  places  of  figures.  "  The 
problem,"  it  has  well  been  said,  "  involved  in  undisguised 
atheism  is  to  derive  the  uniformities  by  which  we  live  and 
move  and  have  our  being,  from  generation  to  generation, 
from  chance  combinations  when  increased  to  infinite  orders 
of  the  powers  of  infinity."  '  These  figures  make  it  as 
certain  as  applied  mathematics  can  make  anything  that 
the  material  elements  could  not  have  given  the  world  its 
intelligible  method  and  filled  it  with  its  wonders  of  orderly 
subserviency  to  utility  and  pleasure,  by  any  merely  inher- 
ent, blind,  and  undesigning  cause.  To  believe  that  the 
poems  of  Homer  and  Milton  or  the  histories  of  Motley 
and  Bancroft  might  be  but  accidental  products  of  the 
blind  interaction  of  the  letters  of  the  alphabet,  would  not 
surpass  the  credulity  of  crediting  to  chance  the  poems  and 
history  of  nature's  universal  movement. 

The  force  of  this  cannot  be  set  aside  by  saying,  as  has 
often  been   said,  that  the  almost  infinitely  probable   may 

\  Wright's  Logic  of  the  Christian  Evidences,  p.  84, 


192  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

yet  occur  —  that  while  there  may  be  trillions  on  trillions 
against  one,  yet  the  one  may  happen,  when  infinite  time 
allows  all  possible  combinations.  This  could  avail  only  if 
the  possible  combinations  could  be  conceived  of  as  run- 
ning on  in  regular  order  without  reversion  through  the 
possible  series.  But  such  orderly  progress  through  these 
combinations,  so  as  to  try  all  and  preserve  the  useful,  is 
itself  a  manifest  subordination  to  plan  and  a  contradic- 
tion to  chance.  It  is  clear  that  the  movement  might 
otherwise  pass  very  often  through  similar  combinations, 
or  replace  its  own  attained  order  with  confusion,  and  so, 
despite  the  infinite  time,  fail  to  exhaust  the  false  condi- 
tions for  the  true. 

Nor  is  the  force  of  this  evidence  evaded  by  adopting 
the  statement  which  is  wont  to  affirm  these  adaptations 
to  ends  as  simply  "  the  necessary  conditions  of  existence." 
It  is  alleged  that  the  forces  of  nature  have  taken  the 
course  they  have  in  virtue  of  their  own  inherent  and  eter- 
nal laws,  in  the  blindest  chance,  indeed,  but  deflected  out 
of  chaos  and  continued  in  better  and  better  adaptive 
movement  just  because  these  combinations  have  in  them 
the  conditions  of  coherence  and  stability.  The  moulds  of 
the  non-adjusted  are  broken  and  disappear.  The  orderly 
remain  because  they  are  stronger.  "■  Tlie  survival  of  the 
fittest"  expresses  the  weakness  of  disorder  in  compari- 
son with  order,  the  strength  and  permanence  which  the 
serviceable  gets  from  its  own  serviceableness  in  the  strug- 
gle of  existence. 

But  this  expression,  "  conditions  of  existence,"  is 
ambiguous,  and  when  cleared  of  its  obscurities,  fails  to 
be  an  explanation.  It  may  mean  either  of  two  things. 
(1)    It    may   be    taken    in    its    absolute    sense,   that    only 


THE   TELEOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  193 

what  is  orderly  and  coordinated  to  use  can  exist.  In 
this  sense,  the  assertion  is  utterly  without  foundation. 
For  a  chaos  has  as  much  chance  to  exist  as  a  cosmos,  and 
by  the  very  theory  of  chance  the  cosmos  only  comes  in  by 
the  slightest  possibility.  Unorganized  and  amorphous 
masses  actually  exist,  and  have  their  *'  conditions  of  exist- 
ence," much  easier  than  useful  organizations.  The  latter 
have  comparatively  poor  chance  in  the  struggle  of  being. 
Simply  to  find  "  conditions  of  existence  "  nature  need  not 
ascend  to  the  higher  forms  at  all.  (2)  It  may  be  taken  in 
a  relative  sense  —  that  an  organism  can  be  what  it  is, 
and  fulfil  its  functions,  only  on  condition  that  its  parts  are 
adjusted  as  they  are.  Then  it  is  no  explanation  whatever 
of  its  origin,  and  furnishes  no  reason  why  it  should  hold 
its  place  at  all  against  the  powers  of  inorganic  nature 
which  in  fact  crumble  every  individual  one  into  dust. 
The  strings  and  its  other  adjusted  parts  are  the  "  neces- 
sary conditions  "  of  a  harp,  but  this  is  by  no  means  a 
showing  that  the  harp  exists  without  the  agency  of  an 
intelligent  maker.  Apart  from  this,  what  necessity  is 
there  for  the  existence  of  the  harp  at  all  ?  It  is  just  from 
its  fulfilling  the  conditions  of  being  a  harp  that  we  know  it 
has  been  made  by  intelligence  and  not  by  chance.  The 
adaptation  of  the  parts  of  an  organism  of  nature,  both  to 
each  other  and  to  their  environment,  is  indeed  the  neces- 
sary condition  of  the  existence  and  relative  stability  of 
such  organism  in  its  specific  and  distinguishing  character, 
but  it  is  just  this  complete  adaptation,  with  such  stability 
of  it,  that  chance  is  unable  to  furnish  a  reason  for.  The 
true  state  of  the  matter  is  this:  The  field  of  existence 
being  so  much  vaster  and  easier  in  the  lower  range  of 
unorganized  combinations,  the  alleged  "conditions,"  when 
13 


194  i^ATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

sifted,  are  not  "necessary"  conditions  of  existence  at  all, 
but  conditions  of  something  far  higher  and  rational,  i.e.^  of 
happiness,  utility,  subserviency  to  the  ideals  and  needs  of 
a  rational  system  up  into  which  they  reach.  The  truth  is 
that  it  is  just  this  finality  found  beyond  the  grade  which 
may  be  sunk  from  view  in  the  mere  essentials  of  existence, 
that  pushes  forward  the  great  problem  whose  solution  we 
are  seeking,  but  for  whose  rational  explanation  no  causal 
forces  short  of  that  of  prearranging  intelligence  are  found 
satisfactorily  competent.  Such  intelligence  we  know  un- 
questionably to  be  the  appropriate  and  specific  cause  of 
finality.  Atheism,  in  rejecting  this  cause,  is  compelled  to 
have  recourse  to  some  form  of  the  hypothesis  of  chance. 

4.  The  leading  explanations  of  the  hypothesis  of  evo- 
lution concede  the  necessity  of  a  creative  ordaining  intel- 
ligence for  cdl  that  nature  includes  from  its  start.  It  is 
this  hypothesis  that  has  given  plausibility  to  the  supposed 
competency  of  the  immanent  and  fortuitous  causality 
already  noticed.  It  is  proper  to  consider,  more  distinctly, 
the  bearings  on  theism  of  this  view  of  nature,  accepted 
now  in  greater  or  less  degree  by  many  leading  scientists. 
It  asserts  no  cause  of  finality  except  such  as  is  found  in 
mind. 

The  hypothesis  of  evolution  may  be  viewed  as  includ- 
ing more  or  less.  (1)  As  including  less:  There  is  unques- 
tionably some  firmly  established  scientific  truth  expressed 
by  this  term.  The  world  of  to-day,  so  full  of  order  and 
adaptations,  was  not  made  as  it  is,  at  once.  It  was  not 
produced  by  a  single  act  of  power,  in  the  form,  aspect, 
and  completeness  we  now  see,  crowded  and  adorned  with 
the  life  and  structures  which  now  appear.  Geology  leaves 
no  room  to  doubt  that  our  very  rocks,  hills,  and  mountains 


THE   TELEOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  195 

have    appeared    under   changes    in    which    the    earth  has 
advanced  from  conditions  in  which  what  now  is  was  not. 
Paleontology  leaves  no  doubt  that  both  vegetable  and  ani- 
mal life  in  the  early  geological  ages  was  simpler  and  of 
lower  order  than   that   which   fills   the   earth    now.     The 
things  that  are  made  have  come  to  be  as  they  are  through 
a  development  or  progressive   movement   out   of  a   very 
remote  past  and  by  a  process  in  some  respects  gradual. 
Beyond  all  doubt  there  has  been  some  kind  of  evolution 
for  the  history  of  the  earth,  and  we  must  put  the  creative 
design  and  word  to  work  far  back  in  the  depth  of  the  ages. 
(2)  As  including  more:  An  evolution,  favored  by  scientists 
of  great  name  as  a  "  working  hypothesis,"  which  teaches  as 
probable  that  all  forms  of  both  vegetable  and  animal  life 
have  been  naturally  evolved,  from    primordial  germs,  say 
in  the  forms  of  protoplasm,  and  have  been  gradually  differ- 
entiated and  improved  by  accumulated  and  accumulating 
characteristics,  through  natural  descent,   into  the  earth's 
present  flora  and  fauna,  man  included.     In  this  view  the 
doctrine  of  direct  creation   is   superseded   by  that  of  an 
evolution  by  slow  and  gradual  advance  and  ascent  through 
countless  ages,  until  at  last  the  present  orders  of  plants, 
races  of  animals  and  man  appear  as  the  lineal  descendants 
of  the  earliest  and  lowest  organizations.     Darwinism  has 
been  the  leading  phase  of  this  hypothesis,  as  being  the 
most    elaborate    attempt    to    explain    on     this    theory    of 
descent,  not  only  the  origin  and  structure  of  the  irrational 
animals,  but  of  man  himself,  under  the  action  of  "natural 
selection  and  survival   of    the  fittest,"     Of   such  descent 
from  preexisting  species,  various  subordinate  hypotheses 
present  differing  explanations.     Some  picture  the  transi- 
tion as   sudden   and   divinely   planned.     Others   as   made 


196  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

naturally  by  changes  too  gradual  to  be  perceived  except 
in  widely  separated  stages. 

Of  this  evolutionary  teaching,  in  this  full  sense,  it  is  to 
be  noted  : 

(1)  It  is  only  a  hypothesis.  Though  believed  by 
many,  it  has  not  been  proved.  It  is  not  to  be  looked 
upon  as  demonstrated  or  even  scientifically  established 
truth,  but  as  a  provisional  "  working  hypothesis,"  to  be 
allowed  only  so  much  weight  as  the  facts  and  reasons 
given  entitle  it.  But  even  were  it  scientifically  estab- 
lished, it  would  not  remove  the  difficulty  of  atheism,  or 
destroy  the  proofs  of  theism. 

(2)  The  theory  does  not  obliterate  from  nature  the 
SiGtuB\  facts  of  finality.  These  are  still  around  and  in  us, 
unchanged  by  the  theory,  clear  and  impressive.  If  evolu- 
tion and  finality  should  indeed  be  irreconcilable,  then  the 
omnipresent  order  of  nature  would  be  evermore  discredit- 
ing the  theory.  These  perpetual,  strong,  clear,  ineradica- 
ble facts  teach  finality  more  impressively  than  any  other 
facts  can  teach  evolution. 

(3)  But  evolution  in  its  very  nature  is  not  a  cause^ 
but  only  a  mode.  It  gives  only  the  oi'der  of  the  jyrocess 
through  which  the  cause  has  been  operating.  It  seeks  to 
set  forth  the  method  by  which  the  cause,  whatever  it  be, 
has  worked.  In  no  just  sense,  therefore,  can  it  be  held  as 
necessarily  excluding  design.  Prof.  Huxley  is  right  when 
he  admits  that  in  this  view  of  the  world,  the  teleologist 
always  has  the  advantage  of  being  able  to  defy  his  op- 
ponent to  show  that  the  present  arrangements  were  not 
from  the  very  first  intended  to  be  brought  about.'  The 
effect  of  evolution,  therefore,  were  it  regarded  as  estab- 

1  Critiques  and  Addresses,  p.  305. 


THE  TELEOLOOtICAL   EVIDENCE.  197 

lished  in  the  full  form  which  teaches  the  derivative  origin 
of  species,  would  simply  be,  in  this  connection,  to  throw 
back  the  point  from  which  the  designing  cause  has  been 
actually  working  to  a  remoter  past.  Evolution  could 
evolve  only  what  was  involved  in  the  forces  and  laws  at 
the  very  beginning.  The  effect,  then,  would  be  to  make 
the  design  sweep  through  longer  range  and  wider  field. 
The  plan  revealed  in  the  issue  may  be  viewed  as  provided 
for  in  the  very  atoms  and  their  given  laws.  Our  dis- 
covery of  laws  is  no  contradiction  of  ends. 

It  is  true,  materialists  have  used  this  hypothesis  as  an 
occasion  for  rejecting  all  teleology.  Denying  all  substan- 
tive existence  except  matter  in  the  universe,  they  have 
claimed  it  as  obviating  all  necessity  of  assuming  a  pre- 
determining intelligence  for  the  production  of  the  world, 
and  as  showing  how  atomic  and  molecular  mechanics,  in 
their  intrinsic  laws,  may  have  formed  things  as  they  are. 
But  as  their  explanation,  necessarily  and  according  to 
their  own  confession,  falls  back  upon  either  immanent 
finality  or  chance,  or  both,  no  further  answer  is  needed 
than  that  already  given  under  those  heads. 

(4)  Evolutionists  of  highest  rank  themselves  claim  that 
the  evidences  from  design  for  an  intelligent  Creator  are 
not  overthrown  or  weakened  by  the  hypothesis. 

A.  R.  Wallace,  who  was  an  independent  cooriginator 
of  the  "selection  theory,"  says:  "Why  should  we  sup- 
pose the  machine  too  complicated  to  have  been  designed 
by  the  Creator  so  complete  that  it  would  necessarily  work 
out  harmonious  results?"  ^ 

Richard  Owen,  one  of  England's  most  eminent  scien- 
tists, says  :  "Natural  evolution,  through  secondary  causes, 

1  Natural  Selection,  p.  280. 


198  i^-ATUHAL  THEOLOGY. 

by  means  of  slow  physical  and  organic  operations  through 
long  ages,  is  not  the  less  clearly  recognizable  as  the  act  of 
an  all-adaptive  Mind,  because  we  have  abandoned  the  old 
error  of  supposing  it  the  result  of  a  primary,  direct,  and 
sudden  act  of  creational  construction,"  ' 

Prof.  Huxley  admits  :  "  There  is  a  wider  teleology 
which  is  not  touched  by  the  doctrine  of  evolution,  but  is 
actually  based  on  the  fundamental  proposition  of  evolu- 
tion." 

St.  George  Mivart:  "Even  'design'  and  'purpose'  are 
recognized  as  quite  compatible  with  evolution."  '^ 

Prof.  Asa  Gray,  one  of  the  most  decided  evolutionists 
of  our  land,  says:  "What  is  lost  in  directness  may  perhaps 
be  gained  in  breadth  and  depth.  .  .  .  The  natural  history 
of  ends  becomes  consistent  and  reasonably  intelligible 
under  the  light  of  evolution.  As  the  forms  and  kinds 
rise  gradually  out  of  that  which  was  well  nigh  formless 
into  consummate  form,  so  do  biological  ends  rise  and 
assert  themselves  in  increasing  distinctness  and  variety. 
Vegetables  and  animals  have  paved  the  earth  with  inten- 
tions." ^ 

Even  Prof.  John  Fiske,  Avhose  enthusiastic  Darwinism 
has  led  him  into  most  daring  speculations,  affirms:  "The 
doctrine  of  evolution  does  not  allow  us  to  take  the  athe- 
istic view  of  man.  .  .  .  He  who  recognizes  the  slow  and 
subtle  process  of  evolution  as  the  way  in  which  God 
makes  things  come  to  pass,  must  take  a  far  higher  view. 
.  .  .  The  Darwinian  theory,  properly  understood,  replaces 
as  much  teleology  as  it  destroys.     From  the  first  dawning 

1  Quoted  from  Schmid's  Theories  of  Darwin,  p.  222. 

2  Genesis  of  Species,  p.  273. 

3  Natural  Science  and  Religion,  pp.  69,  92. 


THE   TELEOLOGICAL   EVIDENCE.  199 

of  life  we  see  all  things  working  together  toward  one 
mighty  goal,  the  evolution  of  the  most  exalted  spiritual 
qualities  which  characterize  humanity." 

As  to  the  amount  of  truth  that  may  underlie  the 
hypothesis  of  evolution,  or  its  value  as  a  scientific  specu- 
lation, this  discussion  is  not  directly  concerned.  Formi- 
dable ditliculties  are  in  the  way  of  its  successfully  ex- 
plaining many  of  the  phenomena  of  nature.  The  win- 
nowing away  of  its  chaff  and  the  saving  of  whatever 
wheat  may  be  in  it  may  be  safely  left  to  Christian  science 
and  thought.  It  is  enough  for  our  purpose,  in  this  con- 
nection, to  note  that  according  to  the  claims  of  its  repre- 
sentative advocates,  the  theory  is  not  necessarily  non- 
teleological,  and  cannot  be  worked  without  assuming  a 
coordinating  intelligence.  In  whatever  conflict  it  may 
stand  with  other  aspects  of  Christian  truth,  it  furnishes 
no  disproof  of  the  theistic  evidences  from  design. 

5.  But  the  crowning  evidence  that  the  finality  of  nat- 
ure is  due  to  an  intelligent  cause  is  found  in  the  existence 
of  human  inind  and  its  supremacy  in  the  world.  Intelli- 
gent, self-determining  personality  is  the  highest  fact  in 
the  actual  world.  We  must  have  a  sufficient  reason  for 
its  existence,  and  for  all  that  it  contains.  Apart  from  an 
infinite  intelligence  as  creator  of  mind,  the  existence  of 
human  personality  and  its  power  over  nature  are  an  insol- 
uble mystery.  We  are  aware,  indeed,  of  the  materialist's 
theory  of  deriving  human  mind  from  material  organiza- 
tion, as  a  product  and  manifestation  of  molecular  action. 
But  besides  the  fact  that  this  explanation  has  commanded 
the  assent  of  but  a  very  small  number  of  thinkers,  and  is 
contradicted  by  incontrovertible  data  of  psychology,  there 

1  The  Destiny  of  Man.  pp.  ll'^i,  32,  113. 


200  Js-ATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

are  considerations  which  show  that  even  were  it  accepted 
it  would  fail  to  annul  the  necessity  of  a  creative  intelli- 
gence. For  the  creative  energy  that  shows  itself  intelli- 
gent in  the  end  must  be  held  as  intelligent  in  the  begin- 
ning—  unless  the  cause  can  give  to  the  effect  more  than 
lies  in  its  own  powers.  A  number  of  points  are  to  be 
looked  at: 

(1)  Mind  actually  exists.  Even  those  wjio  speak  of  it 
as  a  product  of  brain  action  admit  that  it  is.  There  is 
such  a  thing  as  intelligent  will,  self-directing  personality, 
in  the  world.     It  is  a  power. 

(2)  The  materialist's  theory,  which  holds  the  human 
mind  as  a  product  of  brain  organization,  will  not  work 
without  an  adaptive  intelligence  back  of  the  organization. 
If  mind  results  from  the  molecular  action  to  which  the 
hypothesis  credits  it,  then  that  action  must  be  adapted  to 
produce  it.  And  the  adaptation  thus  involved  could  be  con- 
sidered as  no  slight  or  inferior  grade  of  adaptation,  but  the 
most  elaborate  and  exact,  the  subtlest  and  finest  of  which 
we  can  conceive.  It  is  an  adaptation  the  farthest  possible 
from  chance.  If  the  brain  be  not  only  the  organ  of  mind, 
but  the  producer  of  mind,  with  all  its  laws  of  order,  a  very 
cosmos  within  the  cosmos,  the  summit  of  nature  where  its 
whole  action  becomes  purposive  and  reveals  a  justifying 
reason  for  all  inferior  movement,  then  the  brain  itself 
must  not  only  be  the  most  startling  fact  of  finality,  but  a 
peculiar  evidence  of  designed  construction.  On  this  the- 
ory, the  two  terms,  the  cause  and  the  effect,  the  molecu- 
lar action  and  the  mental  product,  are  here  in  immediate 
connection;  and  if  the  molecular  action  furnishes  intelli- 
gence, like  a  rising  light  suddenly  illuminating  all  the 
scene,  it  is  difficult  to  believe  that  no  spark  of  intelligence 


THE   TELEOLOGICAL   EVIDENCE.  201 

was  concerned  in  providing  the  molecular  action.  Out  of 
matter,  into  mind  —  the  bloom  of  nature  into  free  intelli- 
gence is  too  interpretative  to  be  regarded  as  brought 
about,  and  so  wisely  maintained,  by  blind  atomics  alone. 

The  wonder  of  all  wonders  would  be,  if  a  system  of  nat- 
ure with  no  mind  beliind  it,  with  no  predetermined  order 
lodged  within  it,  with  no  arranged  end  for  its  processes, 
all  moving  by  chance  and  blind  force,  should  suddenly,  at 
this  precise  point  in  man's  mental  life,  emerge  into  a  realm 
of  intelligence,  will,  and  purposive  activity.  At  the  close 
of  a  long  series  of  powers  moving  only  in  blind,  necessi- 
tated action,  the  series  is  at  once  changed  into  self-con- 
scious intellect,  self-directing  will,  a  world  of  free  person- 
ality, ruled  by  mental  laws.  Upon  what  law  of  merely 
physical  succession  and  continuity  could  such  a  phenome- 
non be  explained  ?  To  suppose  no  intelligence  for  this  adap- 
tation of  brain  for  the  intelligence  that  appears  in  its  prod- 
uct, is  not  to  assert,  as  materialists  pretend,  a  scientific 
law  of  cause  and  eifect  in  the  appearance  of  mind,  but  to 
abandon  the  law  of  causation,  to  assert  an  event  without 
adequate  cause.  For  then  this  asserted  function  of  the 
brain  for  thought  would  be  credited  to  chance,  and  chance 
would  have  to  be  installed  maker,  both  of  the  realm  of 
nature  and  the  realm  of  all  the  high,  free,  purposive  action 
of  mankind.  Even  on  the  materialist's  hypothesis,  there- 
fore, the  existence  of  self-directing  human  intelligence  de- 
mands, with  inexorable  logic,  the  existence  of  an  intelli- 
gent Creator. 

(3)  But  the  conclusion  thus  required,  even  on  the  basis 
of  materialism,  becomes  stronger  when  the  human  mind  is 
correctly  viewed  as  something  other  and  higher  than  a 
mere  manifestation  of  matter.      As  mentioned  in  a  preced- 


202  i^AtURAL   THEOLOGY, 

ing  chapter,'  science  has  been  unable  to  show  any  explana- 
tion of  the  origin  of  mind  in  any  or  all  of  the  physical 
forces.     Across  the  transitions  between  dead  matter  and 
sensation,  sensation  and  consciousness,  consciousness  and 
intelligent  free  will,  no  bridge   of  simply  physical   causa- 
tion has  ever  been  made  perceptible.     Even  the  mystery 
of  "life"  refuses  the  solution  of  the  scalpel  and  retort; 
much  more,  if  possible,  does  "mind"  elude  all  explanation 
by  the  chemistries  or  known   motions  of  matter.      "  That 
it  cannot  possibly  be,"  says  Prof.  Fiske,  "  the  product  of 
any  cunning  arrangement  of  material  particles  is  demon- 
strated beyond  peradventure  by  what  we  know  of  the  cor- 
relation of  physical  forces."  ^     Mind  exists  as  a  spiritual 
entity,  with    non-material    attributes.      It    is    the    grand, 
crowning  phenomenon  of  the  earth.     The  very  law  of  its 
existence  is  to  act  as  a  final  cause.     Thus  it   becomes  the 
ruling  reality  in  the  world,  down   before  which  everything 
else   bows   and    does    homage.      As   an    intelligent   agent 
human  mind  penetrates  the  secrets  of   nature,  reads  the 
laws  of  its  structures  and  movements,  and  generalizes  its 
principles  and  facts  into  grand  scientific  systems.      It  dis- 
cerns   the   vast    harmonious    adaptations    throughout   the 
world  and  far-off  starry  spheres,  and  in  a  wonder-working 
will,  seizing  hold  of  the  forces  and  laws  in  the  physical 
constitution  of  things,  makes  them  servants  to  its  wishes 
and  welfare.     But  being  itself  a  limited,  dependent  exist- 
ence, it  must  have  had  an  origin.      For  this  origin  there 
nuist  be  an  adequate  cause.      Is  the  intelligence  which  thus 
turns  and  masters  nature  a  mere  passive  and   fortuitous 
product  of  the  blind  physical  forces  which  it  then  analyzes 
and  uses  ?     Is  this  mind,  so  full  of  intentional  activity  that 

1  Page  12.  2  T/ie  Destiny  of  Man,  p.  4:^. 


THE   TELEOLOGICAL   EVIDEKCE.  20S 

this  kind  of  energy  expresses  the  characteristic  anr]  law 
of  its  constitution,  to  be  credited  to  a  fortuitous  origina- 
tion and  perpetuation  by  unconscious  matter  ?  Is  this 
victory  of  finality  to  be  counted  as  the  triumph  of  a  cause 
that  never  had  a  purpose  ?  How  should  chance  action 
establish  the  law  of  action  with  design  ? 

(4)  Stress  must  be  laid  upon  this  freedoju  of  human 
personality.  If  man  is  in  any  real  sense  free,  he  cannot 
be  the  mere  product  of  molecular  action.  If  he  is  the 
pure  creature  of  material  motion,  his  actions  must  be  as 
truly  necessitated  as  the  flow  of  the  tides,  the  fall  of  rains, 
or  the  change  of  seasons,  and  his  counsels  and  deeds,  his 
aims  and  triumphs,  are  nothing  but  the  ever  on-going  inter- 
action of  the  molecules  which  compose  him.  But  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  whole  race  testifies  against  the  suggestion 
of  any  such  law  of  necessity  in  human  personality.  It 
affirms  an  indubitable  freedom;  and  this  at  once  lifts  mind 
into  a  sphere  beyond  the  reach  of  physical  causation. 
Can  causes  which  act  only  in  necessity  create  and  endow 
a  creature  with  the  law  of  liberty  and  choice  ?  The  sci- 
ence which  would  interpret  the  cause  of  the  human  mind 
must  take  full  account  of  all  that  it  presents.  It  presents 
a  wonderful  complex  of  powers,  with  attributes  irreduci- 
ble to  identity  with  those  belonging  to  matter.  It  acts 
not  only  in  self-determination,  but  in  subjugating  nature's 
plasticity  and  movements  to  its  service.  It  has  a  history, 
written  in  ages  of  thought,  skill,  enterprise,  institutions, 
moral  systems,  religions,  arts,  sciences,  literature,  philos- 
ophy. The  pretence  of  accounting  for  man's  personality, 
with  all  that  it  thus  embraces  and  that  reveals  the  nature 
of  its  essence,  by  the  simple  terms  of  material  motion  and 
force,  can  be  plausible  only  if  the  contents  of  the  problem 


204  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

are  forgotten.  It  can  have  a  seeming  success  only  by- 
dropping  out  of  view  the  very  attributes  which  character- 
ize the  phenomenon,  the  adequate  cause  of  which  we  are 
seeking.  There  is  a  direct  and  adequate  explanation  in 
the  creative  energy  of  a  supreme  intelligent  First  Cause. 
But  to  resolve  this  whole  world  of  human  intelligence, 
with  all  its  ages  of  activity  and  achievement,  into  dark, 
unconscious,  impersonal  causation  of  blind  atoms,  is  in 
fact  to  abandon  the  law  of  causation.  For  the  law  re- 
quires adequate  cause;  but  here  there  is  an  almost  infinite 
disproportion  between  alleged  cause  and  the  actual  effects. 
6.  It  adds  great  weight  to  this  conclusion,  to  remem- 
ber that  while  these  reasons  call  for  an  intelligent  cause 
for  the  design  found  in  nature,  tlie  whole  body  of  the 
inductive  sciences  rests  upon  this  assiiniption.  The  the- 
istic  conclusion  is  seen  to  be  in  harmony,  not  only  with 
man's  rational  freedom  and  moral  and  religious  constitu- 
tion, but  equally  so  with  all  the  fundamental  scientific 
necessities  and  interests.  For  science  assumes  that  nature 
is  really  an  orderly  system,  conformed  to  modes  compre- 
hensible by  the  thinking  mind.  It  treats  nature  in  its 
objective  facts  as  answering  to  the  interpretative  order  of 
the  subjective  reason.  The  very  idea  of  "  cause  "  answers 
in  the  mind's  estimate  of  value  as  an  explaining  "  rea- 
son." The  universe  is  treated  as  a  "thought,"  explicable 
under  human  scientific  thought.  Kepler's  words:  "  O, 
God,  I  think  Thy  thoughts  after  Thee,"  expresses  the  real 
assumption  which  underlies  rational  science,  even  when  it 
professedly  repudiates  the  assumption.  For  it  always 
seeks  an  expression  of  nature  in  the  moulds  of  mental 
order.  It  traces  the  relation  of  part  to  part  and  of  part 
to  the  whole,  and  attempts  to  get  at  their  meanings  by  a 


THE   TELEOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  205 

discovery  of  their  rational  relations  to  discoverable  ends. 
It  assumes  teleology,  and  that  a  teleology  in  harmony  with 
mental  laws.  The  force  of  this  is  well  summed  up  in  the 
sentences  with  which  President  Porter  concludes  his  In- 
tellectual Science:  "We  analyze  the  several  processes 
of  knowledge  into  their  underlying  assumptions,  and  we 
find  that  the  one  assumption  which  underlies  them  all  is  a 
self-existent  Intelligence,  wlio  not  only  can  be  known  by 
man,  but  who  must  be  known  by  man  in  order  that  man 
may  know  anything  besides.  In  analyzing  our  psycholog- 
ical processes,  we  develop  and  demonstrate  an  ultimate 
trutli,  and  that  is  the  truth  which  the  unsophisticated 
intellect  of  child  and  man  requires  and  accepts,  that  there 
is  a  self-existent  personal  Intelligence,  on  whom  the  uni- 
verse depends  for  the  being  and  the  relations  of  which  it 
consists.  We  are,  therefore,  not  alone  justified,  we  are 
compelled,  to  conclude  our  analysis  of  the  human  intel- 
lect with  the  assertion  that  its  processes  involve  the 
assumption  that  there  is  an  uncreated  Thinker,  whose 
thoughts  can  be  interpreted  by  the  created  intellect  which 
is  made  in  His  image." 


CHAPTER  Y. 

THE  MORAL  EVIDENCE. 

npHE  moral  evidence  is  drawn  from  the  existence  of  con- 
-L  science  and  the  facts  of  the  moral  system  of  the 
world.  It  includes  the  reality  of  man's  moral  nature  and 
all  the  indications  of  an  intended  conformity  of  the 
race  to  immutable  principles  of  righteousness.  This  evi- 
dence might  be  regarded  as  a  branch  of  the  teleological, 
as  it  traces  a  conformity  in  the  ethical  constitution  of  man 
and  the  world  to  the  high  ends  of  character  and  blessed- 
ness. It  exhibits  the  highest  range  of  final  cause,  for  the 
lofty  ends  for  which  the  whole  system  of  inferior  nature 
exists.  But  it  deserves  specific  attention,  as  a  particular 
proof,  completing  and  crowning  all  the  other  evidences. 

The  facts  on  which  the  reasoning  here  proceeds  are 
very  large  and  impressive,  and  when  grouped  so  as  to  ex- 
hibit their  true  and  necessary  meaning,  their  testimony 
becomes  unmistakable.  It  will  be  enough  for  us  to  look 
at  this  evidence  in  the  three  chief  forms  into  which  it 
naturally  falls. 

1.  Directly  from  the  existence  and  action  of  conscience 
in  man.  Concerning  this  the  following  points  must  be 
noted: 

(1)  Whatever  name  may  be  given  to  this  power,  whether 
called  "conscience"  or  the  "moral  sense,"  or  the  "moral 
faculty,"  or  viewed  as  a  complex  of  different  powers,  its 
existence  as  an  integral  part  of  the  human  constitution  is 


THE    MORAL    EVIDE^^■CE.  207 

unquestionable.  It  is  a  part  of  man's  personality.  In 
various  degrees  of  development  it  is  universal.  In  all 
ao-es  and  all  tribes  it  has  shown  itself  in  assertino-  the  dis- 
tinction  between  right  and  wrong,  affirming  obligation  to 
do  the  one  and  avoid  the  other,  and  declaring  the  reality  of 
duty  and  responsibility.  In  proportion  as  man  is  elevated, 
and  the  faculties  which  belong  essentially  to  his  nature 
are  developed,  this  faculty  —  if  it  is  to  be  so  called  — 
becomes  clearer  in  its  discernments,  and  stronger  in  its 
imperatives.  Its  existence  is  witnessed  to  in  the  earliest 
literatures  of  the  race,  in  the  language  of  every  nation,  in 
all  law  with  its  penalties,  and  all  love  with  its  rewards. 
In  the  highest  culture  into  which  the  best  progress  has 
brought  humanity,  and  in  the  latest  analyses  which  science 
has  attempted  of  the  human  constitution,  conscience 
remains,  not  as  a  diminished,  but  a  more  prominent  and 
impressive  fact.  The  very  latest  speculations,  instead  of 
denying  its  existence,  have  felt  obliged  to  offer  explana- 
tions of  it.  Evolution  wrestles  with  the  fact,  and  offers 
its  "data  of  ethics."  Even  materialism  talks  of  morality, 
while  denying  its  essential  basis  of  free-will  or  self-deter- 
mining personality.  In  some  measure  every  man  finds  in 
his  own  mind  a  necessary  and  ineradicable  distinction 
between  right  and  wrong,  and  a  conviction  of  an  "  ougld  " 
and  ^'' ougJit  not''''  for  himself  and  others.  As  a  rational 
being,  with  faculties  of  knowledge,  sensibility,  and  choice, 
he  knows  himself  to  be  a  moral  agent,  amenable  to  laws 
of  right,  out  from  under  which  there  is  no  escape.  He 
cannot  cease  to  hold  himself  or  others  responsible.  This 
capacity  for  moral  distinctions,  with  its  high  imperative  to 
seek  the  right,  is  the  final  characteristic  of  human  per- 
sonality. 


208  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

(2)  Its  authority  does  not  depend  on  any  particular 
view  of  the  nature  of  conscience.  It  is  true  that  some 
accounts  of  it  tend  to  unsettle  its  value  for  the  moral  life 
and  weaken  its  testimony  to  the  existence  of  immutable 
moral  law.  But  after  all  fair  reductions  are  made,  enouo'h 
remains  to  constitute  a  most  unquestionable  ethical  author- 
ity, somehow  or  other  established  in  man's  constitution. 
There  is  no  good  reason  to  doubt  the  substantial  correct- 
ness of  the  view  which  holds  the  distinction  of  right  and 
wrong  as  a  necessary  idea  of  reason,  and  which  looks  on 
conscience  as  the  reason's  necessary  perception  of  the 
moral  quality  of  the  actions  of  free  agents,  as  conformed 
or  not  to  the  relations  and  perceived  ends  of  being.  It  is, 
undoubtedly,  fundamentally  intellectual,  and  its  action 
consists  in  directly  perceiving,  in  clearer  or  more  imperfect 
way  and  according  to  the  light  enjoyed,  this  quality  of 
right  or  wrong  and  the  consequent  obligation.  Its  func- 
tion is  not  creative,  but  perceptive,  of  the  moral  relation 
it  discerns,  and  of  the  duty  which  arises  in  and  from  it. 
The  moral  emotions,  according  to  the  psychological  law 
under  which  the  mental  sensibilities  are  awakened  only  by 
knowing,  follow  and  blend  with  this  perception  of  moral 
quality  and  the  obligation  it  involves.  This  view  is 
adequately  supported  by  the  best  established  facts  of 
psychology. 

But  even  on  a  lower  view  of  conscience  —  that,  for 
instance,  which  represents  the  moral  judgments  as  the 
product  of  circumstances  and  training,  or  that  which,  in 
the  teaching  of  materialistic  evolution,  interprets  them  as 
"the  results  of  accumulated  experiences  of  utility,  grad- 
ually organized  and  inherited" — the  fact  of  a  sense  of 
moral   obligation   and   responsibility   remains.     The    fact, 


THE    MORAL    EVIJ)ENCE.  209 

with  all  its  well  known  elements,  is  independent  of  any 
theory  of  explanation.  Conscience  does  not  cease  to 
judge,  or  to  hold  men  responsible  to  its  discriminations, 
because  men  speculate  about  its  origin  or  progressive 
development.  It  does  not  withdraw  or  tone  down  its 
claims,  when  the  air  is  full  of  voices  trying  to  show  that 
it  should  not  be  so  imperative.  Unless  man  ceases  to  be 
man  and  falls  out  of  his  intrinsic  personality,  he  must,  day 
by  day,  confront  the  reality  of  moral  distinctions,  asserting 
themselves  by  an  inexorable  necessity  of  his  reason,  and 
holding  him  to  them  as  supreme  law  for  his  life.  And  it 
is  exceedingly  interesting  to  notice  that  the  latest  view, 
as  formulated  by  materialistic  evolutionism,  so  far  from 
teaching  the  downfall  and  disappearance  of  ethical  law 
from  man's  nature,  forecasts  a  future  development  of  it 
continually  toward  the  ideal  standard  of  absolute  or  per- 
fect morality.  Even  on  these  lower  theories,  therefore, 
the  essential  23henomena  of  conscience  remain  as  facts  to 
be  accounted  for.  And  whatever  hypothesis  may  be 
framed  in  explanation  of  its  genesis  and  development,  it 
shows  at  least  a  most  wonderful  adaptation  to  the  endow- 
ment and  highest  exaltation  of  man.  If,  indeed,  a  process 
of  evolution  by  molecular  mechanics  and  organic  differen- 
tiation has  not  only  developed  from  a  chaos  of  atoms  a 
world  of  intelligence  and  rational  order,  but  enthroned  a 
law  of  righteousness  for  the  welfare  of  the  race,  it  becomes 
the  supreme  exhibition  of  the  teleological  principle  and  its 
sovereignty  for  the  whole  system  of  things. 

We  are  not  required,  however,  nor  even  permitted,  to 

interpret  the  conscience  after  any  of  these  lower  theories. 

Probably    no    more    signal  failures    are    anywhere    to    be 

found  than  the  attempts  to  account  for  the  realities  in  the 

14 


210  is^ATUEAL   THEOLOGY. 

moral  perceptions  by  the  accidental  training  of  circum- 
stances or  in  the  experiences  of  utility  and  pleasure 
organized  into  permanent  approval  or  rejection  by  a  proc- 
ess of  materialistic  evolution.  The  idea  of  right  is  uni- 
versally known  to  be  generically  distinct  and  different 
from  that  of  utility,  and  nothing  but  confusion  of  thought 
can  ever  dream  that  they  can  be  counted  the  same.  To 
treat  the  distinction  of  right  and  wrong  as  the  same  as 
the  distinction  between  utility  and  inutility,  or  between 
pleasure  and  discomfort,  is  not  to  account  for  moral  dis- 
tinctions, but  to  deny  them.  There  is  indeed  a  close 
relation  between  rightness  and  utility;  but  the  real  and 
logical  order  is,  not  that  an  action  is  right  because  it  is 
useful,  but  it  is  useful  because  it  is  right.  The  con- 
science-perception discovers  the  right,  irrespective  of  the 
question  of  utility  or  pleasure.  In  the  distinction,  there- 
fore, between  right  and  wrong,  written  ineffaceably  in 
man's  reason  and  irreducible  to  any  other  quality,  there  is 
found  an  enthroned  law  of  obligation  and  responsibility. 
The  reality  of  this  law  requires  a  moral  lawgiver  as  the 
framer  of  his  nature. 

(3)  The  force  of  this  is  not  annulled,  but  rather  con- 
firmed, by  the  diversity  of  the  judgments  of  conscience, 
when  the  moral  distinction  comes  to  be  applied  to  ques- 
tions of  duty  in  the  relations  of  life. 

For,  JiA'st,  the  distinction  is  found  to  persist  in  the  face 
of  the  greatest  contrariety  of  judgment  as  to  its  particu- 
lar applications.  The  law  of  imperative  to  the  right 
may  be  real  and  inexorably  authoritative,  and  yet  in 
the  practical  relations  of  life  men  may  find  it  difficult  to 
determine  the  particular  thing  that  is  riglit.  In  regard 
to  all   the   oTeat   fundamental    ethical  qualities,   in    their 


THE    MORAL    EVIDENCE.  211 

abstract  conception,  the  conscience  of  the  race  has  one 
voice  round  the  globe  and  through  all  centuries.  But 
as  particular  duty  arises  out  of  the  relations  in  which 
men  stand,  the  correct  perception  of  it  is  dependent  on 
a  true  knowledge  of  all  the  relations  concerned.  Each 
special  relation  develops  its  own  moral  obligation.  Every 
set  of  circumstances  imposes  its  peculiar  moral  demands. 
What  is  right  in  some  relations  is  wrong  in  others. 
But  the  point  to  be  observed,  as  the  proof  of  the  en- 
thronement of  a  moral  law  within  man,  is  that  however 
men  may  vary  in  the  judgments  which  apply  it,  they 
never  for  a  moment  doubt,  or  can  doubt,  that  the  law  of 
right  should  in  fact  be  applied.  Amid  all  the  differing 
judgments  of  conscience,  it  still  judges;  and  the  one 
judgment  that  is  never  withdrawn  and  from  which  there  is 
no  dissent,  is  the  supreme  authority  of  the  moral  idea  or 
ethical  law. 

Secondly,  like  every  other  power  of  the  mind,  it  is 
capable  of  different  degrees  of  development.  We  have 
no  mental  faculties  independent  of  training.  They  are 
all  dependent  on  their  right  education  for  their  true 
action  and  full  service.  They  are  often  left  almost  wholly 
incompetent  for  their  office.  Mankind  exhibit  stages  of 
development  from  the  brutish  degradation  of  savage  tribes 
to  the  fine  discriminations  of  the  Christian  philosopher. 
Ignorance  of  the  realities  of  nature  and  the  true  rela- 
tions of  life,  of  the  constitution  of  the  world  and  of  the 
laws  which  express  its  principles  and  purposes,  must  nec- 
essarily affect  the  correctness  of  men's  perceptions  of 
duty.  Since  obligations  are  developed  by  relations,  igno- 
rance or  misapprehension  of  these  cannot  but  confuse 
the  application  of  the  ethical  law,     Conscience  can  apply 


212  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

its  intuitional  distinctions  only  in  the  light  that  is  af- 
forded it  in  the  knowledge  enjoyed.  In  this  part  of  its 
work  it  is  by  no  means  infallible.  It  would  be  exceed- 
ingly absurd  to  suppose  that  in  the  aggregate  of  man's 
finite  and  fallible  faculties,  this  one  should  be  asked  to 
be,  in  its  entire  office  under  all  conditions  of  mental  de- 
velopment, above  the  possibility  of  being  misled.  When 
the  fogs  of  ignorance  darken  and  chill  the  whole  soul, 
or  when  the  general  faculties  of  information  have  given 
error  instead  of  truth,  as  to  the  facts  in  human  life 
and  its  relations,  the  conscience  must  be  almost  help- 
less in  discriminating  the  practical  application  of  the 
principle  of  rectitude.  It  must  have  light.  It  must 
have  its  proper  development.  But  still  —  and  this  is 
the  point  to  be  observed  —  the  conscience,  even  in  its 
most  misguided  judgments,  continues  to  assei't  a  nec- 
essary law  of  distinction  between  right  and  wrong,  and  of 
the  legitimate  supremacy  of  the  right.  In  the  very 
structure  of  his  constitution  man  is  framed  into  a  moral 
system.  He  finds  himself  amenable  to  a  law  which  is  not 
the  product  of  his  will,  but  which  is  irrevocably  imposed 
upon  him  as  supreme  for  all  his  choices.  All  this  testifies 
to  the  existence  of  a  Lawgiver  writing  the  high  impera- 
tives to  righteousness  and  duty  in  man's  inmost  nature. 

(4)  Man's  moral  nature  thus  connects  him  with  a  moi-al 
system  established  by  the  determining  cause  of  all.  The 
reasoning  is  well  put  by  Thomas  Erskine:  "When  I  at- 
tentively consider  what  is  going  on  in  my  conscience,  the 
chief  thing  forced  on  my  notice  is,  that  I  find  myself  face 
to  face  with  a  purpose  —  not  my  own,  for  I  am  often  con- 
scious of  resisting  it,  but  which  dominates  me  and  makes 
itself  felt  as  ever  present,  as  the  very  root  and  reason  of 


THE   MORAL   EVIDENCE.  213 

my  being.  .  .  .  This  consciousness  of  a  purpose  concern- 
ing me,  that  I  should  be  a  good  man,  right,  true,  and  un- 
selfish, is  the  first  firm  footing  1  have  in  the  region  of 
religious  thought;  for  I  cannot  dissociate  the  idea  of  a 
purpose  from  that  of  a  purposer,  and  I  cannot  but  identify 
this  purposer  with  the  x\uthor  of  my  being  and  the  Being 
of  all  beings;  and  further,  I  cannot  but  regard  His  pur- 
pose toward  me  as  the  unmistakable  indication  of  His 
own  character."  ' 

We  may  put  this  proof,  in  brief,  in  this  way:  Human 
personality  is  not  of  itself.  It  is  notoriously  limited,  has 
a  beginning,  developing  out  of  darkness  into  time  and 
space,  gradually  waking  up  to  self-consciousness  and  self- 
government;  and  plainly  has  not  prescribed  for  itself  the 
laws  of  its  being  —  this  law  of  moral  obligation.  It  finds 
it  in  itself  as  given.  The  law  of  duty  in  the  ethical  per- 
ception, the  imperative  to  right,  must  come  from  a  source 
back  of  itself,  binding  human  freedom  to  righteousness. 
The  law,  therefore,  necessarily  points  back  to  the  creative 
power  that,  as  Lawgiver,  has  wrought  it  into  man  s  con- 
stitution and  evermore  reveals  through  it  His  existence 
and  sovereignty. 

2.  From  the  existence  of  a  moral  administration  over 
the  world.  The  evidences  of  this  are  found  in  the  history 
of  men  and  nations  and  the  experiences  of  human  life.  It 
is  universally  admitted  that  by  an  established  relation 
between  actions  and  their  consequences  the  movement  of 
the  natural  system  of  the  world  becomes  a  government  of 
men  by  law.  Consequences  are  not  fortuitous,  or  in 
chaotic  series,  but  are  so  united  to  their  causes  that  they 
may  be  anticipated,   and  so  either  incurred   or   avoided. 

1  The  Spirifuai  Order.,  and  Other  Papers,  p.  47.  See  Theism,  by  Flint, 
p.  402. 


214  KATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

They  thus  become  rewards  and  punishments  —  fore-an- 
nounced penalties  directing  men  to  that  which  will  give 
them  welfare  and  happiness.  It  is  indisputable,  also,  that 
this  natural  administration  is  fundamentally  ?/^or«^ — i.e., 
its  principle  is  to  reward  the  right  and  punish  the  wrong. 
It  is  not  maintained,  indeed,  that  the  world  exhibits  this 
moral  administration  in  complete  form  or  a  perfect  adjust- 
ment of  recompense  to  virtue  or  vice.  That  is  not  the 
fact  as  actually  observed.  Righteousness  is  not  always 
seen  fully  rewarded,  nor  crime  justly  punished.  We  can- 
not affirm,  from  observed  facts  alone,  that  this  world  shows 
a  perfect  moral  government.  Indeed,  by  reason  of  our 
but  limited  view  of  the  relations  of  moral  agents  and 
their  actions,  we  are  incompetent  to  decide  on  the  perfec- 
tion of  such  administration.  But  what  is  unquestionable 
is  that  it  presents  an  essentially  moral  system  in  the 
interest  of  righteousness. 

This  is  practically  involved  and  secured  through  the 
moral  nature  given  to  man.  By  the  force  of  this  every 
man  is  necessitated  to  hold  himself  and  others  as  under 
obligation  to  truth,  justice,  love,  and  all  the  great  prin- 
ciples of  righteousness.  Thus  a  moral  force  is  at  once 
started  and  enthroned  for  the  regulation  of  individuals 
and  society.  This  force  from  conscience  is  met  by  the 
objective  moral  relations  of  which  it  is  adapted  to 
secure  the  fulfilment.  It  is  a  most  impressive  fact,  too, 
that  the  natural  law  of  cause  and  effect  has  been  so 
adjusted  as  to  reward  good  action  and  punish  deeds  of 
vice.  The  virtuous  emotions  are  made  happy;  those  that 
are  vicious  are  made  painful.  Wrong  deeds  wound  the 
personal  constitution;  good  ones  improve  and  strengthen 
it.     In  the  inter-human  relations  this  law  of  effect  is,  with 


THE    MORAL    EVIDENCE.  215 

equal  clearness,  airangetl  on  the  side  of  righteousness. 
The  whole  system  of  human  government  and  law,  which  is 
part  of  the  natural  system,  is  framed  into  the  moral  con- 
ception. Society  punishes  vice  because  it  is  injurious, 
and  rewards  virtue  because  it  is  beneficial.  These  effects 
make  it  the  interest  of  society  to  favor  righteous  conduct 
as  such,  and  to  repress  wrong  as  essentially  undesirable. 

Thus,  though  recompense  is  not  found  meted  out  per- 
fectly according  to  deserts,  yet  the  administration  of  the 
world  is  plainly  seen  to  be  on  the  side  of  right.  Whatever 
imperfections  may  appear,  there  is  not  the  faintest  evi- 
dence to  show  that  it  is  any  part  of  the  plan  of  the  world's 
government  to  punish  what  is  good  because  it  is  good,  or 
to  give  advantages  to  wrong  because  it  is  wrong. 

The  moral  constitution  of  the  world,  with  an  administra- 
tive organization  on  the  principles  of  moral  law,  is  well 
mirrored  in  history.  Responsibility  is  one  of  the  most  com- 
prehensive, serious,  indubitable  facts  disclosed  in  the  records 
of  the  race.  It  has  turned  history  into  drama,  exhibiting 
crimes  and  criminals  coming  under  judgment.  Its  startling 
realities  led  the  ancients  to  enthrone  a  Nemesis  for  the 
earth.  They  have  led  thoughtful  minds  to  speak  of  "God 
in  History."  So  clearly  do  the  conscience  and  the  realities 
of  a  moral  system  reveal  a  moral  governor,  that  even  those 
who  are  inclined  to  break  away  from  commonly  accepted 
truth  and  hide  a  personal  God  from  view  or  recognition, 
are  yet  constrained  to  concede  the  necessary  existence  of 
"  the  enduring  power,  not  ourselves,  which  makes  for 
righteousness."'  That  this  "power"  cannot  be  simply  a 
fortuitous  "stream  of  tendency,"  as  it  has  been  called,  is 
evident  from  the  discriminating  way  in  which  the  tenden- 

1  Matthew  Arnold:  Literature  and  Dogma,  p.  43. 


216  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

cies  of  actions  are  adjusted  to  the  moral  principle,  good 
effects  from  right,  and  punitive  from  bad,  deeds.  At  best, 
"tendencies"  express  only  an  observed  order  of  effects, 
and  the  real  "  power  that  makes  for  righteousness  "  must 
be  in  an  ordaining  cause  behind  the  effects.  The  moral 
principle  on  which  the  administration  proceeds  reveals  a 
Moral  Governor. 

3.  From  the  relation  bettoeen  the  moral  lain  and  the 
hapjnness  of  men.  This  form  of  the  moral  evidence  was 
developed  by  Kant,  and  was  felt  by  him  to  be  adequate 
ground  for  belief  in  the  existence  of  God.  The  moral  law 
is  viewed  as  an  original  and  unconditional  command,  mani- 
festing itself  within  men  as  a  '•'•categorical  imperative.'''' 
Its  authority  is  established  in  its  own  command.  The 
recognition  of  this  authority  appears  as  a  sense  of  duty. 
Man  finds  himself  under  obligation  to  the  moral  idea.  The 
reasoning  may  be  put  into  brief  form  as  follows:  We 
evidently  exist  for  two  ends  —  morality  and  happiness. 
We  are  bound  to  the  moral  law  by  an  imperative  that 
allows  no  dissent.  It  commands  formally,  irrespective  of 
all  consequences.  We  are  also  bound  to  happiness,  by 
adaptations,  desires,  and  capacities  for  it.  Beyond  our 
own  happiness,  this  moral  law  obliges  us  earnestly  and 
steadily  to  seek  the  happiness  of  others,  as  the  chief 
natural  good  appointed  for  them.  But  these  two  ends 
to  a  great  degree  fail  to  coincide.  They  are  not  found  to 
be  in  such  practical  harmony  as  to  allow  full  realization 
and  success  in  both  directions.  We  find  ourselves  power- 
less to  reach  the  aims  that  our  nature  imposes  on  us. 
Following  the  behests  of  the  moral  law,  we  fall  short  of 
gaining  for  ourselves  and  others  the  happiness  for  which 
nature  has  adapted  men.     Hence  we  are  compelled  by  an 


THE    MORAL   EVIDENCE.  217 

act  of  moral  faith  or  the  practical  reason  to  assume  the 
existence  of  a  moral  Author  and  Governor  of  the  universe 
and  a  future  state,  for  an  ultimate  reconciliation  of  the 
appointments  that  appear  in  our  nature.  This  is  required 
to  justify  the  moral  imperative,  as  not  commanding  in 
contradiction  of  man's  chief  good.^ 

These  three  distinct  lines  of  reasoning  from  the  aggre- 
gate of  facts  in  the  moral  constitution  concur  to  the  same 
conclusion.  The  reality  of  the  moral  system  is  too  large 
a  phenomenon  in  the  world,  and  exhibits  too  impressively 
the  working  of  an  intelligent  purpose  toward  the  loftiest 
ends  of  human  excellence  and  welfare,  to  be  attributed 
either  to  chance  or  simply  physical  law.  The  sphere  of  its 
results  is  one  lifted  too  high  above  the  range  of  material 
movement  and  relations  to  be  explained  except  in  connec- 
tion with  a  rational  system  whose  laws  come  from  an 
ordaining  moral  Intelligence.  Science  knows  of  no  prop- 
erties of  matter,  no  collocation  of  atoms,  as  equivalent  to 
the  moral  idea  and  the  imperative  to  righteousness.  It 
has  discovered  no  "potencies"  of  mere  matter  for  the 
origination  of  the  ethical  law,  so  high  above  the  grade  of  its 
blind  interactions  —  this  law  of  the  sphere  of  freedom  out 
of  a  sphere  that  knows  no  freedom.  No  satisfactory  solu- 
tion of  the  great  facts  of  the  moral  system,  in  which  man 
comes  to  his  crown  in  the  possibilities  and  requirement  of 
moral  worth,  has  yet  been  given  or  appears  possible,  except 
in  the  predetermining  creatorship  of  a  righteous  God. 


Here  we  close  this  brief  survey  of  the  natural  evidences 
of  the  existence  of  God.  It  remains  only  to  summarize 
them,  so  as  to  bring  them  in  a  connected  view. 

'  See  Ueberweg's  History  of  Philosophy  (Charles  Scribner  &  Co.).  Vol.  II.  p.  185. 


218  KATUKAL   THEOLOGY. 

1.  A  very  strong  presumption  of  the  divine  existence 
arises  from  the  universality  of  some  idea  of  God,  forcing 
itself,  in  some  form  or  other,  into  the  belief  of  all  ages 
and  all  tribes;  from  a  like  universal  religious  instinct, 
showing  a  natural  and  profound  adjustment  of  the  human 
constitution  to  worship,  a  deep  necessity  for  God  in  the 
aptitudes  of  man's  soul  ;  from  the  benign  influence  of  this 
belief  upon  human  life,  quickening  its  sense  of  duty  and 
responsibility,  and  supplying-,  in  proportion  to  the  correct- 
ness and  strength  of  the  faith,  the  motive  force  for  the 
best  development  of  man's  noblest  characteristics  and 
interests;  and  from  the  fact  that  all  the  phenomena  and 
mysteries  of  the  world  are  best  explained  on  the  assump- 
tion of  the  existence  of  God.  It  is  the  only  rational  solu- 
tion known  for  many  of  the  most  prominent  phenomena  — 
the  most  rational  solution  for  all.  On  the  scientific  princi- 
ple which  holds  a  theory  verified  when  it  solves  all  the 
facts,  the  existence  of  God  becomes  thoroughly  accred- 
ited. 

2.  The  necessities  of  ontological  thought  afford  an- 
other approach  to  this  conclusion.  We  have  an  unavoid- 
able knowledge  of  real  existence  or  being,  in  our  own 
consciousness  of  self  and  of  objective  nature.  We  have 
also  an  idea  of  God,  or  a  divine  existence,  so  spontaneous 
and  normal  as  to  be,  in  truth,  a  necessary  idea.  To  think 
the  thought  of  God  fully  and  rationally,  however,  requires 
us  to  think  of  Him  as  an  absolute  or  self-existent  being. 
Our  knowledge  of  real  existence  also  compels  us  to  be- 
lieve in  self-existent  or  eternal  being.  For,  knowing  that 
something  now  exists,  it  is  impossible  to  deny  that  some- 
thing has  always  existed.  And  thus  our  necessary  rational 
thought  of  God  as  a  self-existent  being  directly  fulfils  this 


THE    MORAL   EVIDENCE.  219 

ontological  necessity  of  a  self-existent  being.  This  line  of 
reasoning,  however,  does  not  in  itself  rigidly  exclude 
pantheism,  or  make  clear  and  certain  the  distinction  be- 
tween God  and  the  universe  itself.  But  the  further  evi- 
dences fully  cover  this  point. 

3.  The  cosmological  inquiry,  finding  nature  in  all  its 
parts  and  as  a  whole  both  finite  and  dependent,  is  com- 
pelled, under  the  law  of  causation,  to  assume  an  adequate 
cause  for  it  all.  The  supposition  of  an  absolutely  eternal 
series  of  limited  and  dependent  causes  and  effects  is 
utterly  excluded  by  its  being  a  contradiction  in  terms.  In 
searching  back  for  the  cause  in  this  series  of  effects,  the 
demand  of  the  law  of  causation  can  never  be  satisfied 
until  a  cause  is  reached  which  is  not  itself  an  effect;  that 
is,  until  a  First  Cause,  a  Self-existent,  Absolute  Cause  is 
reached.  This  draws  the  line  clearly  between  self-existent 
being  and  all  dependent  or  begun  being.  If,  therefore, 
the  law  of  causation  is  true  for  the  real  system  of  things, 
this  finite  and  dependent  universe  must  demand  an  inde- 
pendent or  self-existent  cause.  By  an  inexorable  law  of 
thought,  Absolute  Being  is  the  correlate  and  basis  of 
dependent  being. 

An  absolutely  first  cause,  one  that  is  an  originating 
force  for  effects,  must  be  2i  free  cause;  and  no  realm  of 
free  causation  is  known  except  in  Mind.  This  already,  in 
cosmological  evidence,  points  to  the  First  Cause  as  a 
Rational  Will.  This  evidence,  therefore,  not  only  requires 
a  self-existent  First  Cause  for  the  universe,  but  forbids  all 
confounding  of  that  Cause  with  nature  itself,  or  any  sim- 
ply impersonal  force. 

4.  The  teleological  feature  that  pervades  all  nature 
adds  overpowering  emphasis  to  the  demand  for  an  intelli- 


220  NATURAL  THEOLOGY. 

gent  Creator.  This  characteristic,  appearing  not  only  in 
the  order  and  useful  adjustments  of  the  universe  in  its 
aggregate  balance  and  general  movement,  but  in  its 
myriads  on  myriads  of  distinctly  adapted  organisms,  in 
wonderfully  provided  perpetuity  of  succession,  in  which 
are  found,  everywhere,  the  most  discriminating  predeter- 
minations to  sentient  welfare  and  enjoyment,  and  espe- 
cially in  the  purposive  action  of  the  whole  mental  realm  in 
which  nature's  order  or  gradation  comes  to  its  consumma- 
tion and  crown,  and  receives  its  interpretation — this 
characteristic  demands  for  its  solution  not  only  a  cause, 
but  an  adequate  cause,  an  intelligent  cause,  one  of  incon- 
ceivably great  w^isdom  and  power.  The  principle  of  design 
is  seen  to  be  coextensive  with  the  highest  law  of  the  uni- 
verse. The  world  appears  as  a  thought,  with  evidences  of 
purpose  or  intent  shining  all  through  it,  from  its  adapted 
atoms,  acting  like  purposely  "  manufactured  articles,"  up 
through  all  the  aggregations  in  which  these  atoms  form 
the  cosmos.  The  correlate  of  all  this  thought  is  a  Thinker 
as  the  Maker  of  the  world. 

It  may  be  admitted  that  since  the  world  or  even  the 
universe,  however  great,  is  still  finite,  it  does  not  in  itself 
and  directly  prove  an  absolutely  infinite  being.  No  finite 
product  can,  under  the  simple  principle  of  causation,  dem- 
onstrate an  infinite  power.  This  is  freely  conceded.  But 
the  value  of  the  argument  remains  practically  the  same. 
For  it  is  quite  sufficient  for  all  that  is  sought  from  it  for 
theistic  truth,  when  it  proves  the  existence  of  an  intelli- 
gent Creator  of  the  actual  universe.  The  question  whether 
we  dare  speak  of  Him  as  "  the  Infinite  "  raises  no  practi- 
cal difficulty.  The  theistic  inquiry  is,  primarily,  after  a 
divine  personal  First  Cause  of  the  universe  —  our  Maker 


THE    MORAL    EVIDENCE.  221 

and  the  Maker  of  all  the  worlds.  It  is  enough  that 
it  is  legitimate  proof  of  this.  Moreover,  though  the 
universe  is  indeed  finite,  yet  as  it  is  disclosed,  espe- 
cially in  astronomical  science,  extending  world  on  world, 
system  on  system,  in  countless  constellations  through 
illimitable  space,  beyond  all  the  boundaries  that  the 
telescope  can  discern  or  the  imagination  conceive,  it 
is  so  great  that  we  need  not  hesitate  to  accept  as  true  God 
the  Being  whose  thought  and  will  has  given  it  its  exist- 
ence and  order.  Especially  since  the  cosmological  proof, 
under  the  law  of  causation,  demands  for  the  sum  of  all 
dependent  causes  and  effects  an  absolute  First  Cause,  and 
ontological  thought  spontaneously  and  necessarily  affirms 
the  i\.bsolute  Being  as  also  infinite. 

5.  The  last  form  of  evidence,  taking  up  the  highest 
range  of  facts  which  the  constitution  of  the  world  pre- 
sents, finds  in  them  impressive  confirmation  of  the  theistic 
conclusion.  The  ethical  law  in  conscience,  and  the  moral 
administration  disclosing  itself  in  experience,  observation, 
and  history,  show  how  the  whole  system  of  things  culmi- 
nates in  an  evident  purpose  in  the  welfare  of  man.  The 
Creator  is  shown  to  be  a  moral  Lawgiver  and  Ruler. 

6.  The  theistic  evidences  are  thus,  in  the  fullest  sense, 
cumulative.  The  conclusion  rests  not  on  one  proof  or  one 
kind  of  proof.  Pursuing  the  different  lines  of  reasoning 
here  presented,  we  find  them  at  last  uniting  in  the  common 
conclusion.  But  these  are  only  a  few  of  the  possible  lines 
of  proof.  Tliat  which  is  made  testifies  to  its  Maker  from 
so  many  points  of  observation  and  under  so  many  processes 
that  the  evidences  are  endless.  They  mutually  support 
and  strengthen  each  other.  Their  force  is  seen  and  felt 
not  in  viewing  them  separately,  but  in  their  combination. 


one 


^^^  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

So  nature  speaks  with  thousands  of  voices— with  not 
positive  voice  of  dissent.  It  is  in  this  consilience  of  Evi- 
dence that  we  get  the  proper  theistic  proof.  It  is  when 
all  voices  are  heard  that  we  get  the  sublime  testimony  of 
the  universe  to  its  Creator. 


PART  II. 

THE  CHARACTER  OF  GOD -HIS  RELATION  TO 
THE  UNIVERSE. 

""VTATURAL  Theology,  as  stated  in  the  beginning  of  this 
^^  discussion,  includes  an  inquiry  into  the  character  of 
God,  so  far  as  this  may  be  known  from  reason  and  nature. 
This  part  of  the  subject  is  here  reached.  It  divides  itself 
into  two  branches —  the  essential  attributes  of  the  Deity, 
and  His  relation  to  the  universe. 

223 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE  ATTRIBUTES  OF  DEITY. 

ri^HE  inquiry  into  the  divine  attributes  is  an  inquiry 
-•-  into  those  essential  qualities  or  properties  by  which 
He  is  indeed  God.  The  various  evidences  that  show  that 
God  is,  show  also  to  some  degree  loliat  He  is.  The  divine 
attributes,  therefore,  are  those  characteristics  by  which 
the  being  or  essence  of  God  is  distinguishable  from  all 
being  that  is  not  God.  They  are  not  to  be  understood  as 
mere  conceptions  of  our  own  which  we  attribute  to  God, 
but  as  realities  in  the  divine  nature  and  activity.  Our 
reason  does  not  create  them,  but  apprehends  them  as  they 
are  disclosed  and  reflected  from  the  same  sources  which 
prove  His  existence.  Most  of  these  attributes  have 
already  become  evident  by  the  facts  which  exhibit  Him  as 
the  Creator  and  Lawgiver  of  the  universe.  A  brief  ac- 
count of  them  will,  therefore,  suffice. 

I.    SELF-EXISTENCE. 

This  means  that  His  being  is  in  Himself  alone,  unde- 
rived  and  absolute.  It  denies  origination,  or  dependence 
on  prior  being.  Our  idea  of  self-existence  comes  out  of 
our  analysis  of  the  idea  of  being:  Something  is,  therefore 
something  has  always  been;  and  if  something  has  always 
been,  something  must  have  been  self-existent.  The  proof 
which  shows  that  this  necessary  self-existence  is  found  in 
God  is  given  in  the  entire  cosmological  evidence.      The 


THE    ATTRIBUTES    OF    DEITY.  225 

law  of  causation  demands,  for  the  entire  universe  as  finite 
and  dependent,  a  cause  which  is  not  itself  an  effect.  The 
First  Cause  is  necessarily  unoriginated. 

II.   ETERNITY. 

B}^  this  is  meant  that  God  neither  begins  nor  ceases  to 
be.  This  is  directh'  involved  in  His  self-existence.  Since 
He  is  the  unoriginated,  absolute  Being,  there  is  no  ele- 
ment of  contingency  in  Him,  and  He  is  without  beginning 
or  end.  He  is  the  "  necessary  existence  "  from  eternity 
to  eternity. 

III.    PERSONALITY. 

The  term  "personality"  covers  several  united  attri- 
butes. In  its  complete  import  it  denies  that  the  First 
Cause  is  merely  an  unconscious,  blind,  non-intelligent  force 
or  principle,  or  that  God  is  the  impersonal  sum  of  exist- 
ence. He  is  a  Personal  Being.  The  elements  of  personal- 
ity are  reason  or  intelligence  and  free  will  or  self-deter- 
mination. A  being  that  determines  his  own  course  in  his 
own  reason  is  a  person.  This,  therefore,  really  includes 
these  two  attributes.  First,  intelligence,  seeing  its  own 
way  and  the  reasons  of  its  own  purposes;  and  secondly, 
free  will,  making  and  executing  its  own  choices.  As 
a  person,  therefore,  God  is  the  Rational,  Self-determining 
Energy,  the  Supreme  Reason  and  the  Supreme  Power. 

The  proofs  of  this  personality  begin  in  the  ontological 
evidence  which  shows  that  if  we  think  the  idea  of  God 
rationally  we  must  think  of  Him  as  the  Most  Perfect 
Being.  This  is  found  in  no  rank  below  free  intelligence. 
The  proof  is  strengthened  through  the  conclusion  of  the 
cosmological  reasoning,  which  discovers  a  First  Cause  only 
in  mind  as  an  originating  will-force.  It  is  confirmed  by  the 
15 


22G  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

whole  force  of  tlie  teleological  evidences  which  show  the 
world  to  abound  in  unmistakable  marks  of  adaptive 
thought,  requiring  intelligence  and  will  in  the  power  that 
has  made  it.  Especially  is  it  proved  by  the  grand  phe- 
nomena which  appear  at  the  summit  of  this  creation,  the 
facts  of  human  mind,  with  its  intelligence,  freedom,  and 
moral  law.  Is  it  possible  to  conceive  of  the  originative 
cause  of  human  personality,  with  all  its  lofty  realities,  as 
itself  something  less  than  a  person  ?  Can  this  human  in- 
telligence be  due  to  a  cause  that  has  none?  This  reason 
to  unreason  ?  This  personality  to  impersonality  ?  As 
easily  may  we  think  of  something  born  out  of  nothing. 
Human  mind  is  the  proof  of  the  divine  mind.  The  myr- 
iad myriad  personalities  that  people  the  earth  and  time 
mirror  the  self-existent  personality  of  the  Power  from 
which  the  world  has  come. 

This  accords  with  the  fact  that  rational  will  is  the 
synonyme  of  originative  poimer.  Will  is  essential  energy. 
Our  verv  idea  of  power  comes  out  of  our  consciousness 
of  ourselves  as  exercising  will-force.  Of  originating 
power  we  have  no  conception  at  all  apart  from  person- 
ality. Mind  stands  to  us  as  the  synonyme  of  genetic 
force.  It  is,  therefore,  with  great  reason  that  many  of 
the  acutest  thinkers  have  always  regarded  all  the  force 
that  appears  in  the  processes  of  the  universe  as  the  move- 
ment of  will-power.  The  efforts  of  scientists  to  show 
matter  itself  to  be  intrinsic  and  essential  energy  have 
not  proved  satisfactorily  successful.  The  irresolvable 
inertia  that  everywhere  marks  it  is  greatly  in  the  way  of 
the  attempt.  But  even  should  it  be  so  maintained,  mat- 
ter, by  the  peculiar  properties  of  its  atoms,  appears  to  be 
a  constituted  existence  and  must  have  its  attractions  and 


TIHO    ATTRIBUTES    OF    DEJTY.  227 

repulsions  from  the  will  of  the  Maker,  Nature's  forces 
manifest  themselves  as  modes  of  motion;  but  tiie  foun- 
tain of  the  power  is  discoverable  only  in  the  rational 
will  in  which  the  self-existent  Being  is  both  efficient  and 
final  cause  for  the  creation  of  the  universal  system.  Per- 
sonality, therefore,  is  one  of  the  great  essential  attributes 
of  God.  This  is  the  truth  about  which,  in  a  peculiar 
degree,  all  correct  theism  turns.  As  human  personality 
is  the  supreme  fact  in  man's  nature,  the  one  in  which  he 
comes  into  free  power  and  all  his  highest  distinctions,  so 
the  divine  personality  is  preeminently  that  in  which  God 
is  the  Highest  Perfection  of  being. 

IV.  SPIRITUALITY. 
This  is  closely  allied  to  personality.  It  concerns  the 
esse)ice  of  God,  and  includes  both  a  denial  and  an  affirma- 
tion. It  denies  that  He  is  matter;  it  affirms  that  He  is 
Mind  or  Spirit.  Intelligence,  reason,  will,  are  known  to 
us  only  as  functions  of  mind.  The  same  evidences  that 
sustain  belief  in  His  personality  are  evidences  of  His 
spirituality.  He  is  the  absolute  Mind,  whose  thought 
and  purpose  illuminate  the  movements  of  the  universe. 

V.    UNITY. 

God  is  one  and  alone.  This  means  that  He  is  not  one 
of  a  class.  There  is  not  another  to  constitute  a  class. 
Each  man  is  numerically  one,  and  has  the  unity  of  a  per- 
sonal existence.  But  there  are  many  individual  men. 
The  unity  affirmed  of  God  is  that  He  is  one  and  alone. 
There  is  only  one  God. 

The  evidences  of  this  unity  come:  1.  In  the  cosmo- 
lo2:ical  aro-ument  which  demands  an  absolute  I^ii'st  Ca 


to""""'"  ""& 


use 


for  the  world.     An  absolute  First  Cause    must    be    one. 


228  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

2.  In  the  attribute  of  personality.     A  person  is  a  unity. 

3.  In  the  unity  of  the  universe.  Everywhere,  on  earth 
and  in  all  the  astronomical  systems,  the  forces,  laws, 
movements,  and  order  constitute  a  singing  harmony. 
One  thought  pervades  the  universe  as  an  immeasurable 
organism.  All  worlds  seem  to  respond  to  the  same  law 
of  gravitation.  The  light  from  distant  bodies,  through 
the  spectrum,  shows  the  same  qualities.  The  unity  of 
the  universe  proves  the  unity  of  the  Thinker,  of  whose 
thought  and  will  it  is  an  expression.  This  unity  of  the 
structure  of  nature  may,  indeed,  be  said  to  prove  only  a 
unity  of  counsel.  And  on  the  principle  of  simple  induc- 
tion from  the  unity  of  nature,  it  must  be  confessed,  it 
could  reach  no  further.  But  viewed  in  connection  with 
the  preceding  evidences,  it  carries  strong  confirmatory 
force. 

VI.    INFINITY. 

The  term  "  infinite,"  in  this  connection,  must  not 
be  confounded  with  *'  the  infinite  "  of  abstract  thought, 
conceived  as  the  necessary  "  correlate  "  of  the  finite. 
That  is  a  concept,  and  stands  for  a  conceptual  exist- 
ence. But  the  term  here  is  not  used  to  express  a 
thought-product,  but  to  designate  an  attribute  of  a  real 
Being.  It  is  properly  negative  in  form  and  in  idea,  signi- 
fying 7iot  finite,  unlimited.  When  we  speak  of  God  as 
infinite  we  mean  that  His  being  cannot  be  brought  under 
any  limitations  of  space  or  time,  nor  can  any  of  His  attri- 
butes be  classed  as  finite.  The  word  denies  imperfection 
of  any  kind  or  in  any  respect.  In  this  peculiarity  of 
expressing  a  negative  predicate,  the  word  "  absolute  "  is 
like  the  term  "  infinite.  "  When  we  say  of  God  that  He 
is  absolute,  our  affirmation  is  that  He  is  not  dependent 


THE    ATTRIBUTES    OF    DEITY.  229 

on  any  other  being  for  His  existence,  nature,  or  activity. 
He  is  absolute  as  the  self-existent  First  Cause. 

It  would  be  a  fallacious  process  to  convert  these  nega- 
tives directly  into  positives.  And  yet,  if  we  will  think 
carefully,  we  will  perceive  that  there  is  necessarily  a  posi- 
tive content  included  in  the  conception  of  these  relations 
or  attributes,  in  that  the  terms  only  deny  limitations. 
The  positive  content  —  of  being  or  relations  —  underlies 
the  denial  of  limitation,  and  is  the  recognized  basis  for 
the  distinction  pointed  out  in  the  attribute.  Thus  this 
negative  attribute  of  infinity,  asserted  in  view  of  already 
given  proofs  of  the  divine  existence,  warrants  the  positive 
conception  of  the  full  perfection  of  God's  nature  and 
power. 

The  natural  evidence  of  this  infinity  comes  both  from 
the  rational  necessity  of  conceiving  of  God  as  the  Perfect 
Being,  and  from  the  practical  boundlessness  of  the  uni- 
verse, transcending  the  utmost  reach  of  tlie  imagination. 
As  mirrored  in  the  immensity  of  the  universe,  the  Creator 
must  be  recognized  as  infinite. 

VII.    A   GROUP  OF  ATTRIBUTES  INVOLVED  IN  THE 
DIVINE  PERSONALITY  AS  INFINITE. 

1.  Omniscience.  This  expresses  the  action  of  the 
divine  intelligence  as  infinite.  God  knows  Himself  and 
all  created  and  possible  being  and  relations.  Our 
necessary  conception  of  the  knowledge  of  such  an  intelli- 
gence includes  such  features  as  these:  (1)  It  is  intuitive. 
God  knows  by  an  immediate  view.  Man  must  find  truth 
through  extended  processes  and  hesitating  inferences.  An 
infinite  intelligence  sees  it  all  at  once  and  directly.  (2)  It 
is  certain.     There  can  be  nothing  probable  to  it.     There 


330  KATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

are  no  unknown  contingencies  to  bring  in  any  element  of 
uncertainty.  (3)  It  must  be  infallible.  Its  directness  and 
infinity  exclude  mistake. 

2.  Omnipresence.  An  infinite  Being  is  everywhere. 
No  limit  of  space  can  be  set  for  Him.  This  omnipresence, 
in  Natural  Theology,  rests  not  only  on  this  necessary  impli- 
cation of  thought,  but  also  on  the  fact  that  "in  every 
part  and  place  of  the  universe  with  which  we  are  ac- 
quainted, we  perceive  the  exercise  of  a  power  which  we 
believe,  mediately  or  immediately,  to  proceed  from  the 
Deity."  He  may  well  be  said  to  be  wherever  He  is  seen 
to  be  working. 

3.  Omnipotence.  Power  is  an  attribute  of  the  divine 
Will  to  which  no  limits  can  be  affirmed,  so  far  as  objects 
may  come  within  His  choice.  He  is  omnipotent  for  what- 
ever He  wills.  It  is  impossible  for  us,  in  view  of  other 
necessary  divine  attributes,  to  conceive  of  self-contradic- 
tions, wrong,  or  other  things  sometimes  said  to  be  impos- 
sible to  Him,  as  ever  coming  within  the  range  of  His 
choice.  But  for  the  objects  of  His  will  His  power  is 
omnipotent.  The  creation  and  preservation  of  the  uni- 
verse are  the  expressions  of  this  power.  It  is  true,  the 
creation  of  a  finite  universe  cannot  be  held  as  callina;  for 
the  exertion  of  an  absolutely  infinite  power,  yet  before  the 
impression  of  power  this  universe  gives  to  our  minds,  the 
term  "  omnipotence  "  stands  fully  justified. 

4.  Illimitable  Wisdom.  Wisdom  means  a  quality 
somewhat  different  from  knowledge,  as  it  expresses  the 
action  of  intelligence  in  choosing  the  best  ends  and  accom- 
plishing them  through  the  proper  means.  Natural  Theol- 
ogy affirms  this  attribute,  as  involved  in  the  personality 
of  the  divine  Being.     In  this  personaHty  He  is  the  infinite 


THE    ATTRIBUTES    OF    DEITY.  2*31 

Reason.  Tliis  excludes  the  unreasonableness  in  which 
want  of  wisdom  consists.  Supreme  reason  is  supreme 
wisdom.  This  attribute,  as  thus  made  .apparent  in  the 
very  conception  of  the  divine  nature,  is  reflected  from  all 
the  impressive  phenomena  wliich  have  formed  the  ground 
of  the  teleological  reasoning. 

VIII.  HOLIXESS. 

By  this  word  we  express  the  character  of  God  under  a 
view  required  b}^  all  the  facts  of  the  moral  evidence.  It 
signifies  that  the  divine  Will  is  eternally  and  perfectly 
consonant  with  intrinsic  righteousness,  and  that  this  prin- 
ciple of  righteousness,  under  which  the  moral  system  of 
the  world  has  evidently  been  constituted,  expresses  the 
unchangeably  holy  nature  of  the  Creator.  Our  reason 
compels  us  to  think  of  this  as  a  necessary  attribute  of  a 
perfect  Being;  and  the  ethical  law,  to  which  we  find  our 
nature  inexorably  bound,  is  justly  regarded  as  reflecting 
the  character  of  the  Lawgiver  to  our  moral  faculties. 
God's  nature  is  perfect  moral  excellence,  and  His  free  will 
is  the  action  of  eternal  righteousness. 

IX.  GOODNESS. 

Lovte  and  benevolence  are  synonymous  terms  for  this. 
The  idea  intended  to  be  set  forth  is  that  God  delights  to 
communicate  the  highest  good  to  His  creation.  Benevo- 
lence is  wishing  the  well-being  of  all.  Love  is  a  disposi- 
tion to  do  good.  We  speak  of  this  as  "goodness." 
Employing  it  to  designate  an  attribute  of  God,  we  con- 
ceive of  this  goodness  as  perfect.  But  it  is  in  connection 
with  this  attribute  that  the  main  theistic  difficulties  have 
been  alleged  and  felt.  For,  amid  the  prevalent,  clear, 
and  assuring  indications  of  the  divine  goodness,  there  are 


232  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

discernible  various  contradictory  appearances  ;  some  of 
them  of  such  positive  character  and  complex  relations 
as  to  constitute  profound  and  positively  insoluble  prob- 
lems. The  endless  strife  between  optimism  and  pessimism 
—  asserting,  on  the  one  hand  that  the  world  is  the  best 
possible,  and  on  the  other,  that  it  is  the  worst  possible  —  is 
constant  testimony  to  the  grave  difficulties  which  certain 
phenomena  of  the  natural  constitution  offer  for  solution. 
And  yet  when  the  phenomena  which  suggest  these  diffi- 
culties are  examined  in  their  last  analysis  and  broadest 
relations,  enough  of  explaining  light  shines  through  them 
to  render  it  credible  that,  could  we  understand  them  fully, 
they  would  be  seen  to  be  well  chosen  parts  of  a  benevo- 
lent whole. 

1.  The  evidences  on  which  we  affirm  this  attribute  are 
chiefly  these  : 

(1)  The  great  ethical  principle  which,  as  enthroned  in 
our  nature,  requires  us  to  believe  our  Creator  to  be  right- 
eous and  holy,  involv.es  also  the  necessity  of  His  goodness. 
The  law  of  love  is  embraced  in  the  supreme  law  of  right- 
eousness and  holiness.  The  conception  of  right,  taken  in 
its  fulness,  includes  love.  For  love  is  j^art  of  our  highest 
duty.  It  belongs  to  our  supreme  obligation.  No  man 
exhibits  full  moral  excellence,  if  he  malignantly  seeks  the 
misery  of  others  or  is  selfishly  indifferent  to  their  welfare. 
The  law  of  love  is  required  by  the  law  of  right.  In  bind- 
ing us  to  the  law  of  good-will,  our  Creator  has  forbidden 
us  to  think  of  Him  as  indifferent  to  the  principle  of  good- 
ness. This  principle  is  a  completing  element  in  righteous- 
ness itself.  God's  very  righteousness,  therefore,  obliges 
us  to  think  of  Him  as  acting  in  love.  Whatever  may  be 
the  aspects  which  the  constitution  of  things  presents,  our 


THE    ATTRIBUTES    OF    DEITY.  233 

moral  nature  prohibits  us  from  conceiving  of  Him  as  indif- 
ferent to  the  liappiness  of  his  creation  or  appointing  its 
order  without  respect  to  its  liighest  good.  The  whole 
force,  therefore,  of  the  moral  argument  for  the  proof  of  a 
righteous  Lawgiver  and  Ruler,  requires  also  this  attribute 
of  goodness. 

(2)  The  wisdom  of  God,  in  our  necessary  conception 
of  the  infinite  reason  or  the  divine  personality,  compels  us 
to  believe  in  His  goodness.  As  wisdom  is  concerned  with 
the  choice  of  ends  and  the  ways  of  their  accomplishment, 
it  precludes  the  choice  of  either  moral  or  physical  evil  as 
an  end.  It  excludes  all  want  of  goodness  from  its  action. 
Want  of  goodness  is  actual  unreasonableness.  Infinite 
wisdom  cannot  be  in  league  with  malevolence.  Infinite 
reason  cannot  but  prefer  the  happiness  of  creatures  rather 
than  their  misery.     The  wisdom  of  God  requires  His  love. 

(3)  The  general  tenor  of  the  arrangement,  order,  and 
organization  of  creation  clearly  testifies  to  His  goodness. 
The  prevailing  action  of  undisturbed,  unperverted  nature 
is  good,  and  reveals  a  benevolent  intention.  Goodness,  as 
well  as  wisdom,  is  seen  in  the  exact  adaptation  of  all  the 
parts  of  our  physical  organization  to  their  place  and  office 
in  the  composite  structure;  in  the  adjustment  of  the 
entire  organism  to  the  surrounding  world;  in  the  fitting  of 
the  body  to  the  nature  and  service  of  the  mind;  and  in  the 
precise  suitableness  of  the  mental  faculties  to  the  ends  of 
physical,  intellectual,  and  moral  well-being.  Bounteous 
provision  is  made  for  the  needs  and  happiness  of  all  sen- 
tient existence,  and  the  world  abounds  in  happy  life. 
Everywhere  there  is  "a  felicitous  fulfilment  of  function  in 
living  things,"  and  an  exuberance  of  means  of  enjoyment 
is  poured  around  all  conscious  being. 


234  NATURAL  THEOLOGY. 

What  is  specially  to  be  observed,  as  Paley  has  justly 
pointed  out,  is  that  "the  Deity  has  superadded  pleasure 
to  animal  sensations,  beyond  what  was  necessary  for  any 
other  purpose,  or  when  the  purpose,  so  far  as  it  was  nec- 
essary, might  have  been  effected  by  the  operation  of  pain." 
Nourishment  might  have  been  supplied  without  the  pleas- 
ure provided  for  in  the  specialized  organs  of  taste.  Motion 
might  have  been  left  unattended  by  the  exhilaration  and 
enjoyment  it  actually  supplies.  Every  function  of  animal 
life,  in  uninjured  and  healthy  condition,  goes  on,  not  only 
painlessly,  but  with  a  positive  pleasure  as  something  beyond 
the  merely  functional  requirement.  In  the  adaptations  of 
the  Jmmcai  constitution  this  feature  is  peculiarly  distinct. 
It  is  a  large  fact  in  our  happiness  every  day.  All  our  special 
senses  have  been  filled  with  this  "  superadded "  good. 
Beginning  with  the  fundamental  form  of  touch,  each 
sense-perception  serves  for  pleasure  in  addition  to  utility. 
Through  hearing  and  sight  particularly,  enjoyment  is 
poured  richly  into  every  human  experience. 

But,  highest  of  all,  the  constitution  of  the  mmd  shows 
this  benevolent  intent.  The  intellectual  powers  exhibit  a 
marvellous  adaptation  to  the  discovery  of  useful  and  glad- 
dening truth.  The  reality  and  value  of  this  adjustment  are 
seen  in  the  affluent  treasures  of  general  knowledge  and  sci- 
ence which  have  put  all  the  experience  of  the  past  and  the 
varied  mighty  forces  of  nature  at  man's  service  for  utility 
and  happiness.  The  triumphs  of  mind  in  the  realm  of  mod- 
ern knowledge  have  been  magnifying  the  evidences  of  the 
divine  goodness  in  constituting  the  powers  of  the  intellect. 
In  the  emotional  nature  another  realm  of  enjoyment  is 
provided  —  the  rich  realm  of  love,  friendship,  the  endlessly 
varied   attachments  of   human  souls  in  the  fellowship  of 


TIIK    ATTKir.UTES    OF    DEITY.  2o5 

life.  No  one  can  think  of  tlie  pure  sweet  joy  thus  pro- 
vided and  given  to  the  world,  without  seeing  that  love 
opened  this  fountain.  The  human  sensibility  is  a  special 
provision  for  pleasure.  Had  this  been  made  a  blank,  life 
would  be  poor  indeed.  Through  the  intellect  and  the  emo- 
tions moreover,  the  Creator  has  furnished  a  distinct  per- 
ception and  appreciation  of  the  beautiful  with  which  the 
universe  of  nature  is  everywhere  adorned.  This  lofty 
esthetic  endowment  looks  like  a  provision  made  solely  for 
the  sake  of  enjoyment,  an  unnecessary  outburst  of  the 
Creator's  kindness.  And  over  against  it,  as  a  gift  corre- 
spondent to  the  inner  faculty,  is  an  illimitable  range  of 
provided  beauty  in  the  world,  from  the  beauty  of  the 
snowflake,  the  crystal  forms  of  frozen  moisture  on  a 
window  pane,  or  the  petals  of  the  way-side  flower,  to  the 
beauty  of  the  starry  sky  or  the  symmetry  of  far-off  cosmic 
systems.  The  poetry  of  all  ages  and  lands  has  tasked  its 
powers  and  tried  its  highest  arts  in  attempts  to  express 
this  universe  of  beauty  and  delight.  There  seems  to  be 
no  end  for  beauty  at  all  except  the  improvement  and  hap- 
piness of  the  rational  creation.  In'the  constitution,  also, 
of  the  human  powers  into  free  personality  and  moral 
agency,  and  the  organization  of  the  race  under  moral  law, 
the  benevolent  purpose  is  conspicuously  clear.  For  it  is 
only  by  an  orderly  fulfilment  of  the  proper  offices  in  the 
inter-human  relations  between  the  individuals  of  the  race 
that  man  can  reach  his  highest  good,  whether  that  good  be 
viewed  as  consisting  in  character  or  happiness,  or  in  both 
in  indivisible  union.  That  in  every  man's  conscience,  as 
the  summit  point  of  his  nature,  there  is  inscribed  an 
imperative  to  righteousness  and  love,  is,  indeed,  a  crown- 
ing evidence  of  the  Creator's  benevolent  aim. 


236  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

Thus,  everywhere  through  creation,  in  the  minutest 
structures  and  most  extended  relations,  these  adaptations 
and  provisions  are  found  coordinated  not  only  to  necessi- 
ties, but  to  further  and  distinct  ends  of  welfare  and  enjoy- 
ment. They  are  not  simply  "conditions  of  existence," 
but  clear  provisions  for  happiness.  These  things  have,  in 
all  ages  and  in  every  place,  struck  and  impressed  thought- 
ful minds  as  reflecting  the  goodness  of  God. 

2.  But  the  difficidtles  in  the  wa}^  of  this  broad  conclu- 
sion must  be  stated.  We  do  not  include  in  these  the 
existence  of  moral  evil  or  sin,  for  the  reason  that  this  is 
produced  by  man's  perverse  use  of  his  freedom,  and  exists 
only  by  contradiction  of  the  divine  will,  as  testified  in  the 
conscience.  The  position  in  which  moral  evil  thus  stands, 
as  condemned  and  forbidden  by  the  highest  law  the 
Creator  has  put  in  man's  reason,  makes  it  at  least  as  avail- 
able for  the  vindication  as  for  the  questioning  of  His 
goodness.  But  the  evils  which  perplex  us  here  are  the 
natural  evils  which  appear  in  the  constitution  of  things. 
The  difficulties  are  such  as  these: 

(1)  Organisms  are  not  all  perfect.  Many  of  them  are 
of  low  order,  put  together  apparently  without  much 
regard  to  convenience  or  comfort.  They  are  deficient  in 
strength  and  vital  force.  At  best  they  are  liable  to 
derangement  from  accident  or  age. 

(2)  The  adjustment  between  organisms  and  environ- 
ment is  not  absolutely  perfect.  This  is  so  with  respect  to 
man  as  well  as  the  lower  animals.  There  are  antagonisms 
in  the  material  forces  that  smite  in  injury,  disease,  and 
death.  The  air  carries  poisons  as  well  as  health.  The 
food  that  is  taken  from  Nature's  hand  often  covers  the 
cause   of  pain.     At   best,   the    physical    powers    without, 


THE    ATTRIBUTES    OF    DEITY.  237 

which  embrace  and  support  the  organism,  often  beat  upon 
it  in  pitiless  disregard  of  its  comfort,  and  it  is  only  a  ques- 
tion of  time  when  they  will  lay  it  in  the  dust.  The 
friendly  relation  of  the  environment  is  not  unqualified. 
The  adaptation  is  not  perfect. 

(3)  Even  as  to  physical  nature  itself  the  world  presents 
some  features  which  do  not  seem  to  be  the  best  possible. 
It  is  girdled  with  zones  either  painfully  hot  or  distressingly 
cold;  it  has  vast  tracts  of  barren  desert  or  wastes  of  rocks; 
it  is  shaken  by  destructive  earthquakes  and  burned  with 
outpoured  subterranean  fires;  it  is  swept  by  tempests  and 
beaten  by  the  lightnings  and  hail  of  the  sky.  The  air  is 
loaded  often  with  miasma  and  carries  the  pestilence  on  its 
wings.  These  and  like  things  are  alleged  as  proof  that 
the  world  has  not  been  made  with  either  perfect  wisdom 
or  perfect  goodness.  It  has  been  arranged,  it  is  some- 
times claimed,  in  reckless  disregard  of  the  safety,  comfort, 
and  happiness  of  the  sentient  creation. 

(4)  But  the  chief  arraignment  of  the  goodness  of 
nature's  determining  cause  has  been  drawn  from  the  exist- 
ence in  it  of  an  order  of  warfare  of  life  on  life.  We  are 
pointed  to  indisputable  facts  which  show  that  from  the 
earliest  animal  life,  traceable  by  geology,  till  now  the 
earth  has  been  a  scene  of  death  and  carnage.  Living 
creatures  have  always  been  pursuing  and  devouring  one 
another.  Many  of  the  organs  whose  structure  the  natural- 
ist so  justly  admires  are  simply  offensive  and  defensive 
arms,  instruments  of  attack  and  resistance.  To  a  large 
degree  life  is  kept  up  by  death,  and  through  the  violence 
of  prey.  In  each  of  the  great  classes  of  animals  there  are 
some  species  that  feed  on  others.  There  are  insects  of 
prey,  reptiles  of  prey,  fishes  of  prey,  and  quadrupeds  of 


238  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

prey.  They  are  provided  with  instruments  of  seizure  and 
slaughter.  We  find  the  skilfully  adapted  talon,  and  fang, 
and  poison.  The  continuance  and  progress  of  animal  life 
on  the  earth  seems  thus  to  be  a  triumph  of  power  over 
helplessness,  a  survival  of  the  strongest,  not  alone  as 
against  the  inanimate  force  of  environment,  but  in  this 
ceaseless  battle  for  food.  Man  himself  carries  on  the  sys- 
tem—  killing  for  his  food  whatever  animals  suit  his  taste. 
From  the  worm  up  to  man  is  seen  the  great  law  of  the 
violent  destruction  of  living  creatures.  It  seems  to  have 
been  organized  into  the  plan  of  nature. 

3.  It  may  not  be  possible  to  clear  up  all  difficulties  on 
this  subject,  but  the  following  considerations  will  go  far 
toward  relieving  them. 

(1)  There  may  be  both  w^isdom  and  goodness  in  ar- 
rangements which  yet  fail  to  show  perfect  wisdom  and 
goodness.  Were  it  proved  that  the  distribution  of  heat 
and  cold,  land  and  water,  rocks  and  deserts  and  fertile 
plains,  now  marking  the  condition  of  the  earth,  is  not  the 
very  best,  it  would  not  thereby  be  shown  that  there  is  no 
wisdom  or  goodness  at  all  in  it.  Every  creature  in  the 
world  and  every  provision  on  earth  is  finite,  and  the  finite 
must  always  have  some  limitations.  It  is  always  possible 
to  conceive  of  something  more  perfect  than  any  finite 
thing.      A  finite  good  may  yet  be  a  real  good. 

As  to  the  order  of  the  physical  world  and  the  grade  of 
organisms,  this  asserted  defect  is  in  truth  but  relative 
perfection.  We  dare  not  translate  it  into  terms  of  suffer- 
ing or  a  ground  of  complaint,  unless  we  deny  the  right  of 
the  finite  to  exist.  Moreover,  the  thing  complained  of 
may  be  found  to  serve  a  positive  good.  The  Alpine 
glaciers  which  encumber  vast  tracts  of  land  are  found  to 


THE    ATTRIBUTES    OF    DEITY.  239 

contribute  irrigation  and  fertility  to  the  far-off  valleys. 
The  mountains  which,  with  their  wilderness  of  cliff  and 
forest,  withdraw  so  much  of  every  continent  from  the  use 
of  the  husbandman,  are,  however,  important  factors  in 
directing  the  atmospheric  currents,  distributing  the  show- 
ers of  the  sky,  breaking  the  force  of  storms,  and  spread- 
ing some  gifts  from  sea  to  sea.  In  respect  to  arrange- 
ments in  the  sphere  of  material  existence,  we  need  to  be 
careful  lest  our  hasty  judgments  foolishly  deny  relative  or 
limited  good  to  be  good  at  all. 

(2)  There  may  be  both  wisdom  and  goodness  adhere  we 
can  see  neither  —  where,  indeed,  there  seems  to  us  to  be 
the  contrary.  For  we  are  very  imperfect  judges  of  a  sys- 
tem so  vast  as  this  universe  —  filling  such  space,  progress- 
ing through  such  eons.  Butler,  in  his  great  Analogy^  has 
long  taught  men  the  rashness  and  folly  of  dogmatically 
criticising  either  the  part  or  the  whole  of  this  imperfectly 
comprehended  scheme.'  The  science  of  every  year  is  but 
throwino'  the  boundaries  of  the  universe  into  wider  and 
more  untraceable  relations,  and  while  adding  to  our 
knowledge,  adding  also  to  our  conviction  of  the  transcend- 
ence of  these  relations.  We  can  survey  but  a  very  small 
part  of  this  universe  of  world-systems  and  nature's  prog- 
ress, and  understand  only  imperfectly  the  little  of  it  that 
we  do  see.  The  parts  we  see  are  so  related  to  the  past 
and  future,  and  are  so  connected  in  their  probable  bearings 
on  what  is  beyond  our  vision,  that  we  really  see  nothing  in 
its  wholeness  or  completeness.  We  see  but  fragments  in 
half-vision  or  imperfect  vision,  so  that  we  are  very  liable 
to  mistakes  when  we  venture  to  sit  in  judgment  on  the 
order  or  plan  or  wisdom  of  the  creation.    Could  we  survey 

1  Part  I,  Chap.  VII. 


240  KATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

it  all,  and  comprehend  the  complex  relations  of  every  part 
to  every  other  part,  and  of  all  to  the  whole  system,  such 
explaining  light  might  be  shed  upon  it  all  that  what  is 
now  dark  and  perplexing  might  become  a  bright  reflection 
of  wisdom  and  love. 

Perhaps  it  will  be  said  in  reply  to  this,  that  if  we  are 
incompetent  to  declare  things  to  be  evil,  we  are  also  in- 
competent to  declare  things  to  be  good.  But  the  two 
sides  are  not  equal,  because  it  is  indisputable  that  the 
world  abounds  in  natural  good,  and  that  the  evil  is  ex- 
ceptional; for  this  is  a  matter  of  experience.  Indeed, 
according  to  the  prevalent  conception  of  the  survival  of 
the  fittest,  a  system  preponderatingly  evil  could  not  per- 
petuate itself  through  the  ages.  Progress  is  said  to  be 
necessarily  in  the  line  of  that  which  is  most  desirable; 
that  is,  of  natural  good.  The  thought  of  our  day,  there- 
fore, concedes  that  natural  good  is  ascendent  in  nature.  It 
is  reasonable,  therefore,  under  these  circumstances,  not, 
indeed,  to  deny  the  existence  of  evil,  but  to  believe  that, 
could  we  interpret  everything  in  the  light  of  perfect 
knowledge,  we  would  find  goodness  in  many  things  in 
which  we  now  fail  to  discover  it. 

(3)  "  In  by  far  the  greater  number  of  contrivances  in 
which  design  is  seen  in  nature,  the  design  is  clearly  per- 
ceived to  be  heneficialP  No  one  needs  any  other  evidence 
of  this  than  that  which  presses  on  him  when  he  looks 
within  him  and  around  him,  and  faces  the  thousands  of 
beneficent  adaptations  filling  the  world  with  comfort  and 
happiness.  That  the  prevailing  order  of  nature,  and  the 
specific  purpose  and  action  of  nearly  all  organisms,  and 
parts  of  organisms,  are  beneficent,  is  beyond  question. 
They  are  found  to  be  actually  adapted  to  serviceable  and 


THE    ATTRIBUTES    OF    DEITY.  241 

useful  ends.  Nine  liundred  and  ninety-nine  out  of  every 
thousand  functions  clearly  show  a  purely  kind  intent. 
This  overwhelming  proportion  must  be  considered  as  fairly 
declaring  the  Author  of  nature  to  be  benevolent.  The 
presumption  becomes,  therefore,  exceedingly  strong  that 
the  one  which  carries  some  perplexing  relations  is  not 
really,  but  only  apparently,  inconsistent  with  His  goodness. 
(4)  In  no  place  where  suffering  or  pain  is  found  in 
connection  with  an  organism  does  it  appear  theit  pain,  for 
its  oum  sake,  is  the  object  of  the  contrivance.  It  comes 
as  incidental  to  the  attainment  of  the  design.  There  may 
be  pain  from  having  teeth,  but  there  is  no  evidence  that 
teeth  were  created  for  the  purpose  of  aching.  To  a  very 
large  extent  even  the  incidental  sufferings  have  been 
brought  on  by  unnatural  or  artificial  modes  of  life.  It 
would,  indeed,  require  a  physical  system  of  steel-like 
strength  to  bear  unharmed  and  in  painless  integrity  the 
perverse  and  violent  treatment  it  receives  even  under  our 
merciful  civilization.  The  organizations  are  not  for  the 
sake  of  pain,  but  for  the  useful  functions  of  life  and 
enjoyment.  Their  healthy  functions  are  pleasurable,  and 
the  suffering  which  comes  with  injury  or  decay  only  raises 
the  question  how  far  goodness  must  secure  limited  beings 
from  such  injury  or  decay.  The  pain,  however,  inflicted 
on  others  when  animals  simply  act  out  the  evident  intent 
of  their  provided  organization,  as  in  their  conflicts  with 
one  another,  cannot,  indeed,  be  interpreted  as  due  to 
impaired  function.  Yet  it,  too,  stands  as  incidental.  There 
is  pain  from  the  wasp's  sting,  the  viper's  poison,  the 
eagle's  talons,  the  horse's  hoof;  but  both  the  structure 
and  the  instincts  which  employ  the  structure  in  these 
cases  look  directly  to  the  ends  of  defence  and  self-preser- 
10 


242  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

vation.  We  know  of  no  case  in  which  provision  is  made 
for  the  infliction  of  suffering  for  its  own  sake.  The  ends 
which  these  perplexing  organs  actually  serve,  and  which  we 
must  suppose  they  were  meant  to  serve,  are  of  the  highest 
value  to  the  animal's  own  existence. 

(5)  The  whole  difficulty,  therefore,  so  far  as  concerns 
the  order  of  life  below  man,  is  reduced  to  the  fact  of 
animal  deaths  especially  in  the  system  to/iich  includes 
their  feeding  upon  one  another.  The  other  points  of 
objection,  as  limitations  of  natural  good,  are  not  found  to 
be  in  direct  and  necessary  contradiction  to  the  divine 
S'oodness.  But  the  considerations  that  relieve  our  minds 
as  to  them  fall  short  of  being  a  satisfactory  explanation 
here.  Whether  or  not  a  full  solution  can  be  given,  the 
following  circumstances  are  to  be  taken  into  account: 
(«)  Physical  death,  after  all,  being  but  another  expression 
for  temporary  life,  is  in  truth  only  a  further  feature  of  the 
limitation  of  fmite  existence.  It  is  but  the  boundary  to 
which  the  natural  good  is  extended.  That  the  life  is  not 
made  everlasting  is  no  disproof  of  goodness.  (6)  The  life 
of  animals  of  any  species  whatever,  in  the  duration  given 
it,  is  in  the  main  a  life  of  positive  pleasure.  Unquestion- 
ably the  amount  of  physical  enjoyment  far  surpasses  the 
incidental  pains  that  befall  them,  (c)  These  incidental 
pains  come  out  of  the  same  sensitive  organization  by 
which  they  have  their  capacities  and  experiences  of 
enjoyment.  They  are  a  reversal  of  the  action  of  their 
constitutional  endowments  for  pleasurable  sensations. 
{d)  A  system  which  would  exclude  death,  would,  by  nec- 
essarily making  each  given  life  everlasting,  almost  infi- 
nitely dnninish  the  number  of  individual  animals  that 
could  exist  and  enjoy  life.     Under  the  limitation  assigned 


thp:  attributes  of  deity.  243 

to  iiulividual  lives,  new  generations  are  forever  coming 
into  an  existence  of  enjoyment,  and  the  sum  of  animal 
enjoyment  is,  probably,  much  increased  by  this  succession 
of  generations.  If  the  animal  life  is  to  be  considered  as 
counting  for  a  pleasure  at  all,  and  goodness  is  at  all  con- 
cerned in  the  gift,  this  goodness  is  not  necessarily  im- 
peached by  the  order  which  limits  individual  duration  in 
the  interest  of  this  endless  multiplication  of  numbers 
through  endless  succession,  (c)  The  further  feature  of 
the  system,  by  which  the  different  species  of  animals 
become  food  for  one  anotlier,  appears  to  be  part  of  this 
order  under  which  such  multiplication  of  individuals  is 
incalculably  extended.  In  the  perpetual  provision  of 
food  in  this  way,  in  addition  to  the  supply  in  vegetable 
form,  there  is  allowed  a  more  rapid  and  numerous  in- 
crease, in  all  the  ranks  from  the  lowest  to  the  highest. 
The  vacated  space  is  quickly  filled.  The  process  by 
which  the  living  have  food  is  a  process  by  which  still  more 
come  to  live,  and  the  sum  of  animal  enjoyment  is  made 
greater.  (/')  As  to  the  termination  of  life  in  this  sudden 
and  violent  way,  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that  the  sum  of 
animal  suffering  is  thus  increased  beyond  what  it  would  be 
if  life  ended  only  by  the  slow  exhaustion  and  decay  of  the 
organizations.  We  have,  indeed,  no  reason  to  suppose 
animals  incapable  of  pain,  even  great  pain,  but  most  of 
them  are,  without  doubt,  of  far  duller  nervous  organ- 
ization than  ourselves,  many  of  them  probably  of  very 
slight  sensibility,  and  all  of  them  without  any  rational 
conception  or  fear  of  death;  and  we  must  not  fall  into 
the  illusion  which  measures  death  to  them  in  the  meas- 
ures of  human  shrinking  and  sensibility.  The  instinc- 
tive   action  of  timidity  and  flight,  by  which   they  avoid 


2M  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

danger,  may  possibly  understand  itself  as  little,  and  be  as 
destitute  of  real  suffering,  as  other  instinctive  forces 
which  blindly  act  for  self-preservation.  Without  press- 
ing these  facts  to  any  extreme,  there  is  unquestionably 
some  abatement  to  be  made  from  the  notion  often  formed 
of  the  suffering  experienced  in  the  lot  of  the  lower  ani- 
mals, especially  in  connection  with  their  death.  At  any 
rate,  the  supposed  horrors  of  fear  and  apprehension 
attributed  to  them  are  probably  largely  phantoms  pro- 
jected from  our  human  experience,  and  without  reality  for 
the  experiences  and  acts  of  their  automatic  instinct. 
When  their  lives  are  thus  ended  suddenly,  the  pain,  prob- 
ably of  quite  inferior  grade,  is  but  for  a  moment.  The 
slow  action  of  age  and  weakness,  with  protracted  discom- 
fort, is  excluded. 

These  various  considerations  may  not,  indeed,  remove 
all  our  perplexity  in  the  face  of  this  feature  of  nature. 
Though  diminished  it  is  not  gone  —  nor  turned  into  genu- 
ine satisfaction.  Something  of  mystery,  it  must  be  con- 
fessed, still  shadows  the  fact  as  it  presses  itself  on  our 
view.  Nor  ought  we  to  be  surprised  at  this.  For  the 
immense  sweep  of  nature's  plan  extends  so  far  beyond 
our  vision  that  the  explaining  facts  and  relations,  though 
real,  may  be  out  of  sight.  A  broader  and  deeper  knowl- 
edge might  turn  our  remaining  perplexity  into  entire  and 
positive  satisfaction. 

There  is  a  peculiar  fact  that  is,  probably,  worthy  of 
notice  and  remembrance  in  this  connection.  The  thing 
which  so  much  offends,  and  disturbs  faith  in  the  divine 
goodness,  ceases  to  offend  just  where  we  come  into  prac- 
tical relation  to  the  system.  Men  who  object  to  the 
3cheme  of  nature  which  includes   the    death    of   animal§ 


THE   ATTRIBUTES   OF   DEITY.  245 

for  food,  have  no  convictions  against  it  when  they  them- 
selves are  in  free  and  voluntary  identification  with  the 
scheme.  The  system  comes  to  its  fullest  measure  in 
man's  use  of  animal  food.  If  it  violates  goodness  in  its 
beginnings,  it  violates  it  when  perfected.  Man  slays  and 
appropriates  from  the  whole  animal  kingdom  whatever  he 
can  use  for  his  needs  and  enjoyment.  He  heads  the  class 
of  carnivora.  And  the  singular  thing  is  that  while  he  is 
following  this  course  in  the  freedom  of  his  own  choice, 
and  in  the  presence  of  his  moral  sentiments,  he  shows  no 
signs  that  he  either  judges  or  feels  his  chosen  course  as 
intrinsically  or  in  its  very  nature  wrong.  That  which  so 
perplexed  him  when  looked  at  from  afar,  among  fish,  and 
birds,  and  quadrupeds,  when  offered  to  personal  use  is 
judged  and  freely  accepted  as  useful  and  good.  His 
appreciative  feeling  prompts  him  even  to  natural  grati- 
tude to  the  Author  of  nature  for  the  goodness  that  thus 
furnishes  all  that  adds  to  the  enjoyments  of  his  life. 

We  do  not  recall  this  relation  of  men  to  this  system  of 
nature,  and  the  silence  of  their  consciences  in  their  volun- 
tary participation  in  it,  as  any  positive  answer  to  the  objec- 
tion which  we  are  considering.  It  is  not  proved  right  by 
an  appeal  to  their  compromise  with  it.  Man's  acceptance 
of  the  system  as  good  for  himself  falls  short  of  a  proof  of 
its  absolute  goodness.  But  we  call  attention  to  it  for 
the  purpose  of  reminding  that  the  standpoint  from  which 
we  view  a  feature  of  nature  may  have  much  to  do  with 
our  capability  of  judging  of  its  wisdom  or  goodness. 
Our  judgments  are  modified  by  our  points  of  observation, 
affording  us  different  degrees  of  light  for  correct  conclu- 
sion. In  the  relation  in  which  man  knows  most  about 
this  perplexing  phenomenon,  he  objects  to  it  the  least.     It 


246  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

is  hardly  consistent  for  him  to  hold  it  as  irreconcilable 
with  goodness  when  he  approves  of  it  in  his  own  practice. 

(6)  Pain  and  suffering  are  not  necessarily  a  disj^roof 
of  the  Creator's  goodness.  They  may  possibly  stand  in 
such  relation  to  the  whole  system  of  things  that  they 
mark  and  exhibit  its  noblest  exaltation.  We  must  recall 
such  things  as  these:  («)  They  may  be  part  of  the  essen- 
tial capacity  for  pleasure.  Pleasure  may  be  impossible  ex- 
cept in  an  organization  that  at  the  same  time  allows  pain. 
Liability  to  suffering  may  be  an  incident  inseparable  from 
sensitiveness.  The  nerve  that  was  made  to  leap  with 
pleasure  may  thereby  become  a  channel  to  pain.  With 
the  gift  of  sensation  rises  the  dawn  of  higher  being  in 
nature's  ascent,  {h)  The  office  of  pain  is  primarily  good 
—  to  warn  and  restrain  from  what  would  injure  and 
destroy  the  organization.  Insusceptible  to  pain,  the  or- 
ganization would  be  wrecked.  Prof.  FHnt  well  says: 
"Painful  sensations  are  only  watchful  videttes  upon  the 
outposts  of  our  organism,  to  warn  us  of  approaching 
danger.  Without  these  the  citadel  of  our  life  would  be 
quickly  surprised  and  taken."  '  {c)  Pain  is  a  stimulant 
to  exertion,  and  it  is  only  through  exertion  that  life  has 
health  and  development.  The  uncomfortable  sensations 
of  huno-er  or  thirst  are  stimuli  to  action  necessarv  to  ani- 
mal  well-being.  Life  remains  in  lowest  grades  where 
there  are  no  exercising  forces  of  keen  hunger  or  driving 
desire.  The  measure  of  sensitiveness  becomes  the  meas- 
ure of  development  and  elevation  of  life. 

In  man,  especially,  where  the  heights  of  created  exist- 
ence on  the  earth  are  to  be  reached,  where  not  only  phys- 
ical well-being,  but  intellectual  activity  and  moral  excel- 

1  Theism,  p.  247. 


THE    ATTRIBTTES    OF    DEITY.  247 

lence  are  aimed  at,  the  oflice  of  sensitiveness  seems  to 
stand  as  a  lofty  endowment,  and  its  service  as  a  training 
and  perfecting  force  becomes  conspicuous  and  great. 
Whatever  unexplorable  reason  may  underlie  the  plan  in 
which  such  a  method  of  development  has  been  appointed 
to  him,  of  the  fact  itself  there  can  be  no  doubt.  The 
disciplinary,  educative,  almost  creative  power  of  suffering 
is  unspeakably  great  and  valuable,  and  accomplishes,  in 
character  and  welfare,  unquestionably  benevolent  results. 
All  the  highest  things  in  man's  life,  his  developed  self- 
control,  energy,  strength  of  virtue,  kindness,  beneficence, 
all  the  qualities  which  the  world  admires  and  extols  as 
lifting  human  nature  out  of  littleness  and  flatness  into  real 
grandeur,  are  gifts  of  the  training  in  which  the  sharp  expe- 
riences of  pain  and  suffering  have  contributed  their  essen- 
tial help.  This  method  of  development  makes  it  clearly 
evident  that  there  are  loftier  elements  of  well-being  for 
man's  nature  and  design  than  mere  enjoyment  or  the 
placid  repose  of  exemption  from  pain.  Suffering  is  not 
a  good  in  itself,  but  it  fulfils  a  benevolent  agency.  And 
who  can  positively  affirm  that  the  constitution  of  the 
world,  which  permits  it  to  enter  as  the  attendant  of  the 
high  grade  of  organization  capacitating  for  pleasure,  is 
a  contradiction  to  the  goodness  of  nature's  author? 
For  aught  we  know,  the  system  may  work  out  higher 
ends  of  being  and  blessedness  than  could  otherwise  be 
attained. 

(T)  It  is  worthy  of  consideration,  also,  that  the  liability 
to  suffering  comes  naturally,  and  perhaps  necessarily, 
under  the  action  of  good  and  needed  general  laios.  From 
the  earliest  times  in  which  men  began  to  penetrate  the 
method  of  nature,  it  has  been  understood  to  accomplish  its 


248  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

results  under  the  operation  of  fixed  and  uniform  laws.  Its 
forces  and  modes  are  established  in  the  unity  and  harmony 
of  a  moving  system  fulfilling  its  ends  age  after  age.  The 
uncertainty  and  confusion  of  random  occurrence  are  ex- 
cluded. All  events  take  place  under  orderly  causation. 
Modern  science  has  emphasized  this  uniformity  of  nature 
as  the  grand  fundamental  truth,  on  the  basis  of  which  all 
investigation  must  be  carried  on,  and  all  its  conclusions 
must  rest.  It  is  universally  conceded  that  this  orderly 
sequence  in  the  ceaseless  process  from  cause  to  effect,  in 
fixed  regularity,  is  the  very  beauty  and  strength  of  nature, 
the  great  principle  which  turns  chaos  into  the  cosmos. 
This  uniformity  of  nature  is  the  product  of  the  uniformity 
of  causation;  and  viewed  in  the  light  of  theistic  thought, 
this  uniformity  of  causation  is  due  to  the  creative  and 
ordaining  will  of  God.  The  reign  of  law,  in  this  sense,  is 
now  recognized  as  covering  the  whole  field  of  physical 
nature,  from  the  movement  of  starry  spheres  to  the  fall  of 
a  sparrow  or  the  coloring  of  a  rose's  petal. 

This  principle  of  law  extends  into  the  mental  and  moral 
worlds  —  the  laws  here  being  appropriate  to  the  rationality 
and  freedom  which  belong  to  these  realms.  The  laws 
which  express  the  modes  of  cause  and  effect  in  the  mate- 
rial world,  and  those  which  belong  to  the  higher  range  of 
intellectual  and  moral  order,  respectively,  are  peculiar  to 
their  own  sphere  and  rank,  yet  they  are  adjusted  to  each 
other,  and  by  their  adjusted  action,  the  universe  becomes 
unified  and  harmonized  under  established  general  laws. 

It  is  one  of  the  great  truths,  now  settled  beyond  all 
question,  that  this  uniformity  and  permanence  of  law  is 
the  condition  and  basis,  not  only  of  all  the  order,  strength, 
beauty,  and  glory  of  physical  nature, 'but  of  all  the  possi- 


THE   ATTRIBUTES   OF    DEITY.  249 

ble  excellence,  success,  and  blessedness  of  human  life. 
Because  nature  is  fixed,  human  freedom  can  choose,  and 
act  with  success.  Laws,  running  their  clear  lines  onward 
through  every  sphere,  and  sliowing  results  in  advance,  are 
the  Creator's  call  and  demand  for  obedience  and  conform- 
ity. They  light  up  the  future  to  our  view  and  choices. 
Through  this  fixedness  of  linked  consequence,  seemingly 
so  stern  and  merciless,  we  can  look  onward  down  the 
years  and  ages,  and  work  out  the  highest  possibilities  in 
our  nature  and  powers.  It  is  only  thus  that  nature  is  at 
all  a  subject  of  knowledge  or  science,  or  that  its  forces  and 
movement  are  capable  of  being  used  by  man.  Only  thus, 
indeed,  could  animal  life,  our  own,  or  that  of  the  lower 
orders,  maintain  itself  at  all.  Only  thus  can  we  choose  or 
carry  out  any  choice.  Only  thus  can  there  be  respon- 
sibility or  moral  character,  or  any  ends  open  to  our  attain- 
ment. Only  thus  can  there  be  knowledge,  business,  art, 
industry,  literature,  civilization,  and  culture.  Without 
this  system  of  general  and  unbending  law,  so  far  as  we 
can  see,  nature  must  return  to  chaos  and  the  world  cease 
to  be  a  theater  for  the  lofty  things  which  belong  to  free 
intelligent  personality.  Though  men  have  often  arraigned 
the  constitution  of  the  world  because  of  some  severe  con- 
sequences of  such  unbending  action  of  physical  and  moral 
laws,  this  very  feature  is  the  condition  of  their  being  even 
able  to  understand  enough  of  nature  to  be  able  to  formu- 
late their  complaints.  There  can  be  no  question  that  it 
bears  abundant  evidence  of  being  essentially  a  scheme  of 
wisdom  and  goodness. 

Under  such  a  system  of  general  and  uniform  laws,  open- 
ing up  the  possibility  of  all  that  is  judged  highest  and 
best  in  being,  it  may  not  be  possible  to  prevent  or  exclude 


250  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

all  liability  to  suffering.  The  liability  becomes  a  reality 
when  the  laws  of  nature  and  w^ell-being  are  not  observed 
but  violated.  The  suggestion,  made  occasionally  in  past 
times,  of  immediate  interpositions  to  prevent  the  conse- 
quences fixed  in  nature's  laws  of  cause  and  effect,  can 
plead  no  advantage  for  its  plan.  For,  analyzed  to  the 
last,  it  involves  the  abandonment  of  the  whole  law  of 
order.  In  the  high  range  of  human  freedom,  it  would 
sink  all  the  qualities  of  consideration,  forecast,  prudence, 
and  care,  and  remove  the  basis  and  fact  of  responsibility 
and  virtue,  annulling  all  the  discipline  of  intelligent  power 
and  moral  cliaracter.  It  is  by  no  means  certain  that  the 
system  of  the  world  would  be  made  better  by  insuring  the 
safety  and  enjoyment  of  all  creatures  in  recklessness, 
indifference,  or  inaction.  If  natural  and  moral  laws  were 
made  few  and  uncertain;  if  their  action  were  suspended 
w^henever  their  ongoing  would  afflict  anyone  on  their 
track;  if  fire  would  cease  to  burn  whenever  the  helpless 
were  exposed  to  it;  if  water  would  lose  its  essential  quali- 
ties and  refrain  from  drowning  tlie  crew  of  the  wrecked 
vessel  ;  if  gravitation  were  to  cease  whenever  anyone 
would  be  broken  or  crushed  by  its  movement;  if,  in  short, 
nature's  forces  should  take  an  added  law  to  stop  whenever 
their  uniformities  would  maim  or  wound  anyone,  it  might 
indeed  seem  to  be  a  very  merciful  or  loving  modification; 
but  in  view  of  some  of  the  consequences  which,  we  can  see, 
would  at  once  connect  themselves  with  the  new  order,  and 
others  which  may  be  wholly  beyond  our  vision,  it  becomes 
exceedingly  doubtful  whether  we  can  convict  the  principle 
of  uniformity  and  inflexible  order  of  want  of  wisdom  or 
goodness. 

(8)    The  final  settlement  of  the  question  between  opti- 


THE    ATTRIBUTES    OF    DEITY.  251 

mism  and  pessimism,  whether  tlie  world  is  the  best  world 
possible,  or  the  worst,  is  prohahhj  unpossible  from  a 
simple  observation  and  co)}vp(irlson  of  the  facts  of  nature 
and  experience.  These  facts  both  reflect  light  and  cast 
shadows,  and  their  testimony  as  it  comes  to  us  needs  an 
interpreter  who  stands  on  a  higher  point  of  view,  and  in  a 
broader  light  than  is  possible  to  us  here.  The  question 
must  be  answered  rather  from  our  necessary  conception  of 
the  perfect  nature  of  the  Infinite  Being.  In  the  final 
response,  the  necessary  character  of  God  must  explain  the 
creation,  and  assure  that,  though  some  shadows  lie  upon 
it,  it  all  together  stands  for  a  thought  of  wisdom  and  an 
aim  of  love.  And,  thus,  the  question  calls  for  more  light 
than  reason  and  nature  alone  can  give  —  the  illumination 
of  the  Christian  revelation.  All  that  Natural  Theology 
can  settle  at  this  extreme  point  —  and  it  is  enough  that  it 
can  do  this  —  is  (^^),  that  no  suffering  is  found  inflicted  for 
its  own  sake;  (^>),  that  all  the  direct  ends  of  nature  are 
clearly  beneficial  and  good;  (c),  that  most  of  the  perplex- 
ing features  are  really  but  defects  implied  in  all  creation 
as  finite  and  limited,  which  we  interpret  into  terms  of 
suffering;  and  ((7),  both  the  general  purpose  of  happiness 
unmistakably  written  on  nature,  and  the  very  conception 
we  necessarily  have  of  God  as  the  Perfect  Being,  the 
Perfect  Reason  and  Wisdom,  warrant  the  conclusion  that 
goodness  really  presides  over  the  aggregate  scheme,  and 
that,  could  we  understand  it  fully,  the  perplexing  features 
would  come  under  love's  illumination,  and  cease  to  per- 
plex. 


CHAPTEE  II. 

RELATION  OF  GOD  TO  THE  UNIVERSE. 

npHE  inquiry  here  includes  two  distinct  questions.  The 
-^  first  is  whether  God  is  to  be  conceived  of  as  tran- 
scendent to  the  universe  or  as  immanent  in  it,  or  as  in 
both  these  relations.  The  second  is:  What  is  the  supreme 
or  ultimate  end  in  creation  ? 

I.    WHETHER  TRANSCENDENT  OR  IMMANENT. 

It  needs  to  be  observed  at  the  outstart  that  the  exist- 
ence of  God,  as  shown  by  the  evidences  in  the  first  part  of 
this  work,  is  a  truth  independent  of  the  question  here 
raised.  That  truth  rests  upon  its  own  basis.  Yet  the 
proofs  which  have  established  it  have  the  further  force  of 
opening  the  way  to  a  right  conclusion  as  to  this  additional 
question.  The  facts  which  have  shown  the  existence  of 
God  shed  light  on  His  relation  to  the  creation  which  ap- 
pears as  His  work. 

1.  The  entire  evidence  shows  that  God  and  the  uni- 
verse cannot  be  identified.  For,  on  any  philosophy  capa- 
ble of  being  applied  to  the  theistic  evidences,  the  Cause 
must  be  distinguished  from  the  effect.  To  imagine  the  uni- 
verse  to  be  at  once  the  cause  and  the  effect  of  itself,  would 
set  at  nought  the  logical  demand  of  all  the  great  facts  in 
the  case.  These  facts,  especially  in  the  cosmological  and 
teleological  evidences,  forbid  the  idea  that  nature  itself 
may  be  the  absolute,  eternal,  self-existent  being.  It  bears 
incontestible  marks  of  dependence  and  origination.     The 

252 


KELATION    OF    GOD    TO   THE    UNIVERSE.  253 

pantheistic  conception  which  makes  God  and  the  world 
one  —  pantheistic  monism  —  is  clearly  excluded  by  the  nec- 
essary distinction  which  the  principle  of  causation  com- 
pels us  to  make  between  the  cause  and  the  effect.  The 
Supreme  Cause,  tiiat  which  is  tlie  Cause  of  all  secondary 
or  instrumental  and  dependent  causes  in  nature,  must  be 
other  than  nature  itself  and  distinct  from  it. 

2.  The  relation  between  cause  and  effect,  therefore,  on 
which  the  proofs  of  the  divine  existence  rest,  requires  us 
to  conceive  of  God  as  transcendent  in  respect  to  the  uni- 
verse. The  Cause  is  before  and  above  the  effect.  This 
relation  is  part  of  the  essential  conception  of  the  principle 
of  causation.  This  transcendent  relation  of  God  as  the 
Creator  of  the  universe  is  universally  admitted,  except  by 
the  extreme  materialism  which  denies  His  existence,  or  l^y 
the  pantheism  which  identifies  tiiat  existence  with  the  uni- 
verse, holding  the  physical  universe  as  but  the  evolution 
of  the  divine  substance.  This  pantheistic  conception, 
however,  when  viewed  in  its  last  analysis,  turns  into 
atheism.  For  it  finds  no  God  other  than  the  universe 
itself,  the  sum  of  nature. 

In  affirming  this  necessary  transcendence  of  the  Deity 
as  thus  demanded  under  the  conception  of  Him  as  the 
First  Cause  of  all,  we  must,  nevertheless,  avoid  what  has 
been  called  "absolute  transcendence."  Natural  Theology 
has  to  guard  against  a  false  extreme.  An  "absolute 
transcendence  "  would  regard  Him  as  so  separate  from  the 
universe  as  not  to  be  in  it  or  act  in  it,  but  as,  after  having 
created  its  substances  and  established  its  forces  and  laws, 
simply  observing  its  ongoing,  as  an  artificer  might  observe 
the  movement  of  the  mechanism  which  he  has  constructed. 
Such  a  notion  of  transcendence^  found  in  some  of  the  writers 


254  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

of  ancient  Greece  and  Rome,  has  often  since  reappeared. 
God  was  elevated  to  an  empyrean  far  beyond  the  move- 
ment and  noise  of  the  world,  and  rejDresented  as  wholly 
unconcerned  about  the  vicissitudes  and  issues  of  life. 
This  extreme  view  has  too  frequently  affected  theological 
thought  and  representation.  The  supermundane  relation 
has  been  exaggerated  into  an  almost  impassable  gulf. 
Neither  prayer  nor  its  answer  can  cross  it.  The  creature 
is  thrust  outside  of  fellowship  with  the  Creator.  The  sys- 
tem of  nature  is  a  mechanism  constructed  and  wound  up, 
to  run  of  itself  its  fixed  course.  No  such  absolute  tran- 
scendence is  required,  however,  by  the  evidences  here  con- 
cerned. No  such  extreme  separation  should  be  included 
in  our  notion  of  the  relation  of  the  Deity  to  the  world. 
Yet  God  must  be  before  and  above  the  universe  of  created 
existence.  A  real  and  essential  transcendence  is  the  first 
and  fundamental  requirement  of  all  the  evidences  which 
prove  Him  to  be  the  absolute  Creator. 

3.  The  same  causal  relation  which  thus  necessitates 
our  conception  of  the  divine  transcendence  requires  us  to 
recognize  also  the  divine  immcmence  in  the  world.  For 
the  causal  action  did  not  remain  external,  acting  only  from 
outside  of  nature,  but  has  become  an  omnipresence  and 
power  within  it.  God  appears  as  essentially  a  transitive 
Cause,  passing  over  and  forever  filling  as  well  as  abiding 
in  the  universe.  All  causes  are  the  established  onflow  of 
the  divine  will  and  energy.  They  could  not  be,  or  con- 
tinue, without  Him.  The  universe  is  in  God,  and  God  in  it 
forever,  by  necessity  of  His  infinity  and  omnipresence. 
This  truth  resolves  and  harmonizes  the  difficulties  sug- 
gested by  the  natural  facts  of  immanent  causation  and 
finality.     It  neither  denies  nor  obliterates  the   reality  of 


EELATION    OF    GOD   TO   THE    UNIVERSE.  255 

second  or  physical  causes  and  laws  in  nature,  but  recog- 
nizes their  dependent  relation  to  the  purpose  and  estab- 
lishing will  of  the  absolute  Creator.  The  fact  of  secondary 
causation,  of  efficient  energy,  under  natural  or  fixed  law, 
moving  and  developing  as  material  and  physical  forces,  is 
unquestionable,  and  not  at  all  to  be  dropped  from  view.  It 
is  indeed  the  fundamental  reality  underlying  the  entire 
proof  of  the  divine  existence.  The  search  in  the  whole 
inquiry  of  theism  is  after  the  cause  of  these  natural  pow- 
ers and  their  established  action.  We,  therefore,  must  not 
fall  into  the  mistake  of  some  theistic  writers,  who  have 
attributed  each  separate  and  individual  event  in  nature  to 
a  direct  act  of  the  divine  will  or  energy.  This  error  an- 
nihilates the  reality  of  secondary  causation.  It  is  not 
only  in  plain  contradiction  of  all  that  we  know  of  the  con- 
stitution of  nature,  whether  as  ascertained  in  common 
knowledge  or  through  science,  but  it  vacates  the  very  pos- 
tulate on  which  the  theistic  argumentation  is  based.  Nat- 
ural forces  are  real,  and  the  laws  of  their  action  are  made 
immanent  in  the  nature  of  the  elements  or  organism  in 
which  they  show  themselves.  But  they  are  the  real  prod- 
ucts and  ordinations  of  the  will  of  the  Deity  who  gave 
them  their  reality  and  appointed  their  modes  or  laws. 
They  remain  as  the  permanent  ordinary  or  natural  powers, 
of  divine  creation  and  establishment.  The  laws  of  nature 
are  modes  of  the  divine  power  and  will  in  nature; 
vet  the}^  have  been  fixed  by  the  creative  act  within  the 
very  forces  which  exhibit  them.  They  are  the  sequences 
according  to  which  God  ordinarily  acts,  yet  their  results 
come,  not  as  direct,  but  as  mediate  products  of  the  divine 
power. 

The  loo'ical  demand  of  the  facts  of  the  cosmic  svstem 


256  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

point,  therefore,  to  the  conclusion  that  God,  who  was  before 
the  universe,  not  only  created  the  natural  forces,  with  their 
modes  which  we  call  laws,  as  real  subordinate  agents  for 
their  intended  results,  but  that  in  His  infinity  He  filled,  and 
forever  fills,  the  universe  with  His  presence  and  power. 
The  First  Cause  becomes  transitive,  and  His  presence  is 
never  separated  from  His  power. 

As  it  has  been  necessary  to  guard  against  an  absolute 
transcendence,  so  it  is  needful  to  guard  against  an  "abso- 
lute immanence."  Rational  theism  must  reject  this  error 
as  well  as  the  other.  While  an  absolute  transcendence 
would  represent  God  as  a  remote  Deity,  keeping  wholly 
outside  of  His  works  and  giving  it  no  presence  or  love  or 
living  relation  to  Himself,  an  absolute  immanence  would 
run  into  a  pantheistic  identification  of  God  with  nature 
itself,  making  the  universe  but  an  evolution  of  the  sub- 
stance of  God.  This  error  fails  to  maintain  the  distinction 
between  God  and  nature,  and  in  attempting  to  make  all 
divine  leaves  nothing  divine  —  loses  God  in  an  absolutely 
immanent  cosmical  causality.  This  absolute  immanence 
of  causality  and  finality,  whether  of  the  materialistic  or  the 
pantheistic  sort,  is  one  of  the  subtlest  repudiations  of  true 
theism,  and  but  another  name  for  atheism.  This  transi- 
tive immanence,  however,  which  starts  with  the  recogni- 
tion of  the  essential  and  necessary  transcendence,  main- 
tains the  proper  and  real  dualism  of  God  and  nature,  the 
Creator  and  the  creation,  and  yet  confesses  His  presence 
and  power  everywhere.  It  is  in  harmony  with  the  concep- 
tion of  nature  as  a  true  effect  of  an  originating  Cause,  and 
at  the  same  time  recognizes  the  unceasing  and  omnipresent 
working  of  God  within  and  through  it.  As  a  conclusion  of 
Natural  Theology,  it  is  also  in  harmony  with  tlie  view  of 


RELATION    OF    GOD    TO    THE    UNIVERSE.  257 

poets  and  sages  of  our  Christian  Scriptures,  who  looked  on 
everything  as  God's  doing.  It  is  in  consonance  with  the 
teaching:  "In  Him  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being." 
He  is  above  nature  and  below  it,  without  it  and  within  it, 
yet  never  a  part  of  it.  He  is  not  nature,  but  nature  is 
from  Him  and  subsists  by  Him.' 

"  Super  cimcta,  subter  cuncta, 
Extra  cuncta,  intra  cuncta; 
Intra  cuncta,  nee  inclusus, 
Extra  cuncta,  nee  exclusus ; 
Super  cuncta,  nee  elofus, 
Subter  cu?icta,  nee  substratus; 
Super  totus,  pro^sidejido, 
Subter  totus,  sustinendo."  ^ 

4.  It  is  proper  yet  to  emphasize  what  has  been  implied 
all  along,  that  the  relation  of  God  is  that  of  absolute  Cre- 
ator, and  not  an  artificer  working  with  eternally  existent 
materials.  The  dualism  of  God  and  nature  is  not  a  dual- 
ism of  two  eternally  existing  substances,  God  and  matter; 
but  the  relation  in  which  Deity  stands  as  the  absolute  Cre- 
ator of  the  elements  as  well  as  the  form  of  the  world. 
The  rational  concept  of  God  is  that  of  the  unconditioned 
ground  of  all  being.  This  excludes  the  self-existence  of 
matter — which  would  condition  the  divine  activity.  More- 
over, if  matter  were  eternal,  its  laws  would  not  be  of  God, 
but  inherent  and  beyond  God.  The  whole  basis  of  the 
universe  would  thus  be  outside  of  God.  He  would  be  re- 
duced to  simply  a  cunning  and  skilful  architect.  The 
notion  of  the  eternity  of  matter  has  had  a  large  place  in 
the  thought  of  past  times,  and  remains  to  some  extent  in 
the  present.     Its  old  motto:   "  ex  nihilo  nihil Jit,^^  is  still 

1  Bibliotheca  Sacra,  Vol.  XXXVIII.  p.  25. 

2  Hilbertus  Turonensis,  Latin  Hymn&  (Harper  &  Brothers),  p.  103. 

17 


258  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

quoted  in  its  old  sense.  But  when  used  in  any  other 
meaning  than  as  a  statement  of  the  universality  of  the 
law  of  causation  and  of  the  necessity  of  postulating  a  First 
Cause  of  all  things,  it  leads  to  an  idea  forbidden  by  the 
whole  body  of  the  theistic  evidences.  These  evidences 
call  for  one  absolute  Being  as  the  sole  self-existence.  And 
all  that  science  has  been  able  to  show  of  material  atoms 
and  their  combinations  reveals  a  purpose,  plan,  or  adap- 
tation in  their  essential  structure,  as  of  manufactured  ar- 
ticles, or  subordinate  and  prepared  agents.  The  entire 
teleological  evidence  points  clearly  to  Mind  as  the  cause 
of  the  forces,  laws,  and  products  of  matter.  The  order- 
liness of  these  forces  and  laws,  their  beautiful  adaptation 
to  the  ends  of  intelligence  and  purpose,  are  inconsistent 
with  the  notion  of  their  independent  existence.  Kant,  in 
one  of  his  earlier  essays,  well  says:  "There  is  a  God,  be- 
cause nature,  even  in  chaos,  could  not  proceed  otherwise 
than  with  regularity  and  order.  .  .  .  Left  to  its  own  gen- 
eral qualities,  nature  is  rich  in  fruits  which  are  always  fair 
and  perfect.  Not  merely  are  they  harmonious  and  excel- 
lent themselves,  but  they  are  adapted  to  every  order  of 
being,  to  the  use  of  man  and  to  the  glory  of  God.  It  is 
thus  evident  tliat  the  essential  properties  of  matter  must 
spring  from  one  mind,  the  source  and  ground  of  all  beings; 
a  mind,  in  which  they  belong  to  a  solidarity  of  plan."  ' 

This  absoluteness  of  God's  creative  relation  compels  us 
to  think  of  time  and  space  as  of  God.  Time  and  space 
are  not  to  be  thought  of  as  entities  or  relations  independ- 
ent of  Him  and  of  His  creative  action,  as  they  have  often 
been  represented.      Nor  are  they  mere  subjective,  illusive 

1  Quoted  from  Wallace''s  Kant,  Blackwood's  Philosophical  Classics,  pp.  109, 
110. 


RELATION"    OF    GOD    TO    THE    UNIVERSE.  259 

notions  of  our  own  minds,  mere  forms  of  thought,  after 
the  misleading  doctrine  of  relativity  in  the  Kantian  phi- 
losophy. They  are  true  for  the  actual  universe.  Yet  they 
belong  to  the  universe  only  as  created  by  God.  Space,  in 
itself,  is  only  the  possibility  of  extended  material  existen- 
ces. That  possibility  is  only  in  the  creative  power  of  God. 
Apart  from  Him,  space  is  absolute  vacuity,  utter  nothing- 
ness. Time  is  the  possibility  of  finite  events  or  existences, 
with  some  continuance.  Apart  from  God,  time  is  nothing 
—  only  the  possibility  of  something.  These  possibilities 
were  originally  only  in  God.  Time  and  space,  as  con- 
ceived before  the  creation,  can  be  conceived  of  only  as 
the  not-hein<j  of  anything  but  God.  When  He  creates 
beings  other  than  Himself,  time  and  space  relations  begin 
for  the  universe. 

II.    THE  SUPREME  OR  ULTIMATE  END  IX  CREATION.  ^ 

The  law  of  ends,  so  clear  and  decisive  in  the  constitu- 
tion and  relations  of  the  various  parts  of  nature,  compels 
belief  in  an  ultimate  all-inclusive  end.  The  teleological 
principle,  once  admitted,  must  be  extended  to  the  universe 
in  its  totality.  There  must  be  some  supreme  purpose  to 
which  all  subordinate  purposes  converge  and  in  which  the 
relations  of  all  are  consunnnated.  If  God  created  the 
very  substances  with  properties  fitted  for  their  intended 
service  in  world-buildino-,  and  has  o-iven  to  each  organism  a 
complex  of  distinct  adaptations  to  both  internal  uses  and 
external  conditions,  if  all  nature  is  made  a  balanced  order, 
a  very  cosmos,  moving  on  in  a  steady  harmony  and  rational 
progression,  we  are  logically  forced  to  conclude  that  He 
created  the  entire  system  of  things  for  some  defined  and 
specific  end.      Nothing  seems  to  exist  for  itself  alone.    The 


260  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

parts  everywhere  have  relation  to  the  whole.  Everything 
looks  to  something  beyond  itself,  and  is  framed  into  a 
grand  system  embracing  the  entire  universe.  The  crea- 
tion as  such  must  stand  for  and  express  a  purpose.  Only 
thus  does  the  law  of  ends  find  its  full  comprehension. 
Only  thus  is  the  origin  of  the  universe  in  a  designing  In- 
telligence really  and  fully  justified.  This  ultimate  purpose 
expresses  one  aspect  of  God's  relation  to  the  world. 

But  what  is  that  purpose  ?  For  what  end  did  God  give 
existence  to  the  universe?  Why  did  He  create  it?  This 
question,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind,  is  different  from  the 
question  whether  He  had  any  end.  The  reality  of  final 
cause  in  nature  is  always  to  be  distinguished  from  our 
ability  to  discover  the  actual  purposes.  The  existence  of 
ends  is  one  thing;  our  discovery  of  them  is  quite  another. 
The  interpretations  which  men  have  put  on  nature's 
organizations  and  relations  have  often  been  absurdly  mis- 
taken. Teleology  has  often  been  discredited  by  the  gro- 
tesque blunders  and  frivolous  explanations  of  its  friends. 
It  is  one  of  the  offices  of  true  progressive  science  to  enable 
us  to  read  the  thought  of  God  more  correctly  in  nature's 
specific  structures  and  relations.  While  in  many  things, 
as  in  the  eye  or  ear,  the  end  is  unquestionable,  and  it 
would  be  a  spurious  modesty  of  knowledge  to  affect  not 
to  know  it,  in  others  the  ends  are  so  obscure  or  compli- 
cated, or  reach  out  into  so  wide  a  circle  of  relations,  as  to 
make  the  most  skilful  interpreter  rightly  hesitate  to  claim 
a  full  or  certain  knowledge  of  them.  In  so  large  a  problem 
as  that  which  seeks  the  supreme  purpose  of  the  universe 
itself,  the  ultimate  aim  to  which  it  has  been  adjusted,  our 
certainty  tliat  it  has  an  end  may  not  be  equalled  by  our 
certainty  of  knowing  it.    The  difficulties  to  our  knowledge 


RELATION    OF   GOD   TO   THE    UNTVERSE.  261 

arise  not  alone  from  the  vastness  of  the  universe,  stretch- 
ing ahnost  to  infinity  of  space  and  time,  but  from  the 
necessary  limitations  under  which  our  finite  minds  must 
ever  view  the  infinite  thoughts  and  purposes  of  the  Eternal 
Mind.  Yet  even  here,  guided  by  the  truth  that  our  reason 
is  in  the  pattern  of  the  Infinite  Reason,  our  personality  is 
in  the  mould  of  the  Infinite  Personality,  we  may  find  the 
light  of  truth  shining  with  such  clearness  as  to  assure  our 
confidence.  We  may  probably  know  the  generic  end  of 
the  divine  purpose  in  creation. 

1.  Several  questionable  views  have  been  widely  as- 
serted. One  is,  that  God  created  the  universe  for  Him- 
self or  His  oion  glorj/.  The  reasons  alleged  for  this  view 
are:  (1)  That  before  creation,  God  being  the  only  and 
absolute  Existence,  the  whole  reason  of  creation,  i.e.,  both 
motive  and  aim,  must  have  been  in  Himself.  There  was 
nothing  else  with  respect  to  which  He  could  act.  (2)  That, 
as  He  could  act  only  for  the  worthiest  object,  one  of  infinite 
worth.  He  could  find  it  only  in  Himself.  His  own  glory 
could  be  the  only  worthy  object.  But  the  following  con- 
siderations are  enough  to  make  us  hesitate  to  accept  this 
explanation  :  (1)  That  though  the  universe  was  not 
actually  existent,  it  was  existent  in  the  divine  thought 
and  plan,  and  could  thus  certainly  stand  for  an  end  in  the 
divine  action.  (2)  Tliat  it  seems  to  imply  that  God  was 
not  absolutely  self-sufficient,  but  was  lacking  something 
which  He  created  in  order  to  complete  Himself  or  His 
glory.  If  it  be  maintained,  as  the  theory  appears  to  assert, 
that  God  can  act  only  for  an  infinite  object,  and  can  have 
no  end  outside  of  Himself,  creation  becomes  inexplicable; 
for,  as  already  having  Himself,  wdiy  should  he  seek  Him- 
self in  a  roundabout  way'?     If  the  terminus  of  the  divine 


262  KATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

aim  was  absolutely  Himself,  how  would  he  ever  have  come 
out  of  Himself  in  creative  work?  (3)  It  implies  —  and 
this  is  the  decisive  trouble  in  this  theory  —  that  the  divine 
activity  is  necessarily,  in  its  final  aims,  supreme  self- 
seeking.  Creation  is  made  a  selfish  proceeding.  It  is 
impossible  to  save  the  theory  from  this  implication.  Even 
when  it  is  shaped  with  a  view  to  avoid  it,  the  taint  of  the 
implication  inheres  in  it.  For  if  the  ultimate  end,  that 
whicli  subordinates  everything  else  to  itself,  is  His  own 
glory,  then  all  else  falls  into  the  relation  of  mere  means, 
and  love  becomes  subordinate  to  self-aggrandizement.  The 
infinite  perfections  of  God,  especially  as  unified  in  love, 
seem  clearly  to  foi-bid  this  theory. 

Another  theory  represents  that  God  created  for  the 
sake  of  the  happiness  of  the  creation.  It  holds  that 
though  infinitely  happy  in  Himself,  He,  out  of  pure  good- 
ness, desired  to  give  existence  and  happiness  to  other  and 
finite  beings.  But  tliis  view  is  defective  for  two  reasons. 
(1)  It  goes  on  the  assumption  tliat  simple  happiness  is  the 
creature's  supreme  good.  (2)  It  fails  to  take  account  of 
the  ethical  character  of  God,  which  must  necessarily  have 
place  and  manifestation  in  His  creative  will  and  plan. 
God  may  delight  in  creating  excellence  as  well  as  happi- 
ness. In  His  sight  there  may  be  something  higher  than 
enjoyment.  The  great  ethical  law  stamped  on  man's 
reason,  and  inwrouglit  into  the  whole  moral  constitution 
of  the  world,  reflects  a  divine  intention  beyond  the  simple 
communication  of  pleasure.  Viewed  in  the  light  of  the 
goal  to  which  man  is  bound  by  all  the  emphasis  of  his 
moral  nature,  the  divine  aim  must  be  considered  as  having 
included  an  ethical  object.    (3)  Under  a  theory  of  creation 


RELATION    OF    GOD    TO    THE    UNIVERSE.  263 

simply  for  happiness,  the  occurrence  of  suffering  would  be 
inexplicable,  as  defeating  the  supreme  end. 

2.  We  will  best  reach  tlie  correct  conclusion  on  this 
subject  by  observing  the  necessary  distinction  between 
the  subjective  and  the  objective  reasons  for  the  divine 
action.  By  the  sul)jective  reason  is  to  be  undei-stood  the 
divine  inqndse  or  motive  arising  from  God's  own  nature. 
By  the  objective,  the  end  at  which  the  divine  motive,  as 
an  intelligent  purpose,  aims.  His  own  nature  is  the 
supreme  reason  of  His  choices  and  the  source  of  His 
action.  Because  He  is  what  He  is  He  delights  to  do 
what  He  does.  In  acting,  the  relations  of  subject  and 
object  must  be  true  for  God  Himself,  unless  God  be  really 
lost  in  a  pantheistic  unconsciousness  which  knows  neither 
self  nor  ends.  The  subjective  impulse  and  the  objective 
end  never  exclude,  but  always  imply  and  call  for  each 
other.  A  mother's  heart  is  the  subjective  reason  for  her 
self-sacrifice,  but  the  child's  welfare  is  the  end  it  seeks. 
Such  a  distinction  we  are  not  only  authorized,  but  required 
to  make  in  conceiving  of  the  divine  action.  It  will  help 
us  to  the  true  view  on  this  question.  This  view  must 
include  two  points  : 

First,  the  supreme  reason  of  God's  creating  the  uni- 
verse is  the  subjective  one,  and  is  found  in  His  own  good- 
ness, delighting  hi  the  exercise  of  the  divine  pov^er  and 
wisdom  in  the  production  of  blessed  existence.  Creation 
is  a  form  of  Love's  free  self-manifestation  and  outworking. 
Since  God  is  absolutely  self-sufficient,  goodness  is  the  only 
thing  that  could  determine  Him  to  the  production  of 
beings  other  than  Himself.  Personality,  whether  finite  or 
infinite,  is  self-moving.  The  absolute  Personality  must 
move  absolutely  from  Himself.     In  His  own  being  was  the 


264  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

only  moving  spring  to  the  forthputting  of  creative  energy. 
He  created  because  of  His  fulness^  self-moved  in  favor 
toward  the  creation  He  contemplated.  Love  is  the  power 
that  takes  out  of  self  and  acts  non-egoistically  and  altru- 
istically. Creation  is  altruistic  activity.  Guided  by  wis- 
dom and  holiness,  love  is  the  disposing  or  moving  principle 
to  God's  power.  The  universe  is  an  expression  of  the 
principle  of  communicative  goodness.  While  it  reflects 
God's  wisdom  and  omnipotence,  it  preeminently  represents 
His  love. 

Seco7icUy,  the  objective  end  sought  by  God  was  the 
blessedness  of  the  creation.  This  blessedness  must  be 
understood  as  uniting  both  excellence  and  happiness.  It 
includes  ethical  as  well  as  sensitive  good.  What  God 
delights  in,  and  therefore  sought  to  give  existence  to,  is 
not  creature  enjoyment  alone,  but  real  excellence  of  being. 
Since  His  action  was  altruistic,  we  are  entitled  to  say  that 
in  creating  the  universe  He  sought  it,  and  not  Himself. 
It  is  the  nature  of  love  to  communicate  itself,  to  act  for 
the  production  of  excellence  and  happiness,  to  create 
objects  on  which  it  may  pour  out  its  favor.  It  would  be 
in  conflict  with  this  law  of  love  to  make  God's  creative 
action  but  a  movement  bending  back  on  Himself,  a  curve 
of  outgoing  and  returning,  with  the  supreme  end  of  dis- 
playing His  own  glory.  It  does  display  His  glory,  and  all 
the  more  radiantly  because  not  an  act  of  self-seeking,  but 
of  love.  In  a  high  sense,  too,  the  creation  is  "  for  Him- 
self," i.e.,  it  is  for  the  action  of  His  love  and  goodness. 
*'For  Thy  pleasure  they  are  and  were  created."  When  we 
thus  look  upon  the  excellence  and  felicity  of  the  creation 
as  the  objective  terminus  of  the  creative  action,  we  see 
the  object  sought  in   the   object  created,   and  yet  leave 


RELATION    OF    GOD    TO    THE    FXTVERSE.  265 

the  entire  and  supreme  reason  {ratio)  of  creation  in 
God  Himself.  This  answer  to  the  whole  question  seems 
best  to  accord  with  the  demands  of  reason,  and  at  the 
same  time  leaves  room  for  the  great  fact  which  Christianity 
brings  to  our  view,  the  fact  of  (livine  self- sacrifice^  by 
which,  in  redemption,  God  still  seeks  the  welfare  and  hap- 
piness of  His  creatures.  If  love  may  be  held  as  the 
supreme  reason  of  redemption,  it  may  certainly  be  of 
creation.  The  explanation  throws  the  reasons  and  ends 
of  creation  and  redemption  into  harmony. 

3.  As  a  subordinate  topic  under  this  general  question, 
we  naturally  inquire  into  the  specific  end  for  our  oian 
v'orld.  We  may  justly  say,  indeed,  that  God  sought  cdl 
the  distinct  objects  represented  and  accomplished  in  the 
existence,  experiences,  and  true  uses  of  all  the  various 
parts  of  the  world's  constitution  and  inhabitants.  Myriads 
of  different  aims  are  everywhere  and  for  ever  passing  into 
fulfilment  and  illustrating  the  richness  of  nature's  tele- 
ology. But  since  this  constitution  exhibits  a  vast  range 
of  graded  and  ascending  correlations,  or  a  coordinated 
and  advancing  scheme,  we  necessarily  ask  for  its  ultimate 
and  all-comprehending  purpose,  as  one  of  the  worlds  of 
the  great  universe.  We  seek  a  teleology  for  the  earth 
in  its  material  and  organic  development  and  human  his- 
tory. 

Clearly,  if  we  interpret  the  significance  of  the  order  of 
subordinations  and  progression  of  existence  and  life  on 
our  planet,  the  purpose  of  the  earth  must  be  held  as  cul- 
minating in  the  service  and  destiny  of  man.  We  are 
aware  of  the  scorn  with  which  some  writers  have  sought 
to  cover  this  claim  for  our  race,  as  but  the  pleasant  self- 
flattery  of  human  vanity.     But,  undeniably,  science  puts 


'206  KATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

man,  with  his  mental  and  moral  endowments  and  possi- 
bilities, at  the  summit  of  nature  on  our  globe.  The  inor- 
ganic parts  of  the  eartli  look  to  the  organic,  the  vegetable 
to  the  animal,  the  animal  organization  is  crowned  in  the 
human.  The  human  rises  into  the  realm  of  free  spiritual 
being.  The  movement  of  the  grand  series  of  advances 
and  ascents,  traced  up  along  the  slow  progress  of  the 
geologic  periods,  shows  no  sign  of  anything  higher, 

"The  diapason  closing  full  in  man." 

To  him  are  given  attributes  which  place  him  in  rulersliip 
over  the  whole  realm  of  nature.  Though  his  physical 
organization  is  embraced  in  it,  his  spiritual  and  rational 
endowments  stand,  in  a  sense,  above  it.  In  the  vast  rock- 
ages  nature  was  prophetic  of  his  coming,  providing  for  his 
life  and  industries;  now  it  submits  its  forces,  and  laws, 
and  wealth  of  productions  to  his  knowledge,  will,  and 
uses.  This  does  not  mean  that  each  specific  thing  on 
earth  exists  solely  for  him.  Tliere  are  innumerable  distinct 
and  real  provisions  for  other  and  subordinate  ends.  The 
order  of  nature  is  so  arranged  as  to  make  each  particular 
being  reciprocally  an  end  and  a  means  with  respect  to 
others.  But  the  number  and  proportion  that  termi- 
nate on  human  life  give  it  this  lofty  preeminence.  This 
is  the  crown  and  explanation  of  nature.  "  Man  is,  so  far 
as  this  earth  is  concerned,  the  highest  end  to  which  nature 
has  attained,  and  toward  which  it  has  always  been  striv- 
ing. He  seems  to  be  endowed  with  all  the  forces  of 
nature,  as  well  as  with  the  powers  of  spirit.  They  are 
all  taken  up  and  represented  in  him.  .  .  .  All  this  plainly 
indicates  that  man  is  at  the  head  of  all  creatures  here  on 


RELATION    OF   GOD    TO   THE    UNIVERSE.  :>(')7 

the  earlli,  and  to  him  all  nature  is  and  alvva3's  has  been 
tributary."  ' 

It  is  not  theology  alone  that  asserts  this  view.  It  is 
preeminent!}^  the  doctrine  of  science.  Science  is  every- 
where revealing-  the  goal  of  nature's  forces  in  the  utilities 
of  human  life  and  welfare.  Even  evolution  is  offering  its 
concurring  word  for  it.  "  The  Darwinian  theory  shows  us 
distinctly,  for  the  first  time,  how  the  creation  and  perfect- 
ing of  man  is  the  goal  toward  which  nature's  work  has 
been  all  the  while  tending.  It  develops  tenfold  the  sig- 
nificance of  human  life,  places  it  upon  even  a  loftier 
eminence  than  poets  or  ])rophets  have  imagined,  and 
makes  it  seem  more  than  ever  the  chief  object  of  that 
creative  activity  which  is  manifested  in  the  physical  uni- 
verse. .  .  .  Not  the  production  of  any  higher  creature, 
but  the  perfecting  of  humanity,  is  to  be  the  glorious  con- 
summation of  nature's  long  and  tedious  work,"  ^  We 
need  not  accept  this  evolutionary  hj^pothesis,  but  in  thus 
assigning  man's  place,  it  does  homage  to  the  invincible 
teleological  force  of  the  vast  system  of  nature's  indica- 
tions. The  highest  point  to  which  the  converging  lines  of 
our  world's  arrangements  and  adaptations  seem  intended 
to  look  is  the  welfare  of  the  human  race. 

4.  The  lofty  position  thus  given  man  is  justly  viewed 
as  implying  something  of  high  importance  or  worth  in  his 
nature.  There  must  be  in  his  happiness  and  possibilities 
a  value  that  justifies,  even  to  the  divine  reason,  this  mar- 
shalling of  so  many  agencies  and  operations  to  his  use,  and 
consummating  a  world's  history  in  his  service.  We  must, 
therefore,   interpret   his  rational    and   spiritual   nature   as 

1  Prof.  S.  Harris'  Philosophical  Basis  of  Theism,  p.  885. 

2  The  Destiny  of  Man,  bj'  John  Fiske,  pp.  25,  31. 


268  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

being  no  ordinary  or  temporary  endowment,  but  one 
which  exalts  him  to  a  divine  fellowship  and  a  destined 
immortality.  This  interpretation  is  sustained  by  many 
and  varied  lines  of  confirmatory  evidence.  In  all  ages 
and  nations  the  race  has  developed  and  cherished  belief  in 
a  continued  existence  after  death.  Literature,  from  the 
time  of  Plato  down  to  the  present,  has  busied  itself  with 
this  hope  and  its  reasons,  Man  has  everywhere  inter- 
preted his  destiny  as  higher  than  that  of  the  grass  that 
withers  and  the  beasts  that  perish.  In  his  aspirations  after 
ideals  never  reached  in  this  life,  in  a  sense  of  constitu- 
tional possibilities  and  adaptations  in  his  being  not  fulfilled 
here,  he  has  read  his  appointment  to  a  larger  and  higher 
field  of  thought  and  action  in  some  future  sphere.  These 
common  "  intimations  of  immortality  "  have  not  been  dis- 
credited, but  have  been  vindicated  and  assured  by  the 
best  and  latest  science  and  philosophy.  The  human  soul, 
with  the  great  attributes  of  reason,  freedom,  and  ethical 
responsibility,  is  irresolvable  in  any  combination,  inter- 
action, or  motion  of  matter.  No  chemistry  of  the  material 
elements  or  processes  of  molecular  action  can  explain  the 
origination  of  thought  and  personality.  "  By  no  possi- 
bility can  thought  and  feeling  be  in  any  sense  the  products 
of  matter."  ^  Self-determination  and  memory  refuse  all 
physical  solution.  "It  is  absolutely  and  forever  incon- 
ceivable that  a  number  of  carbon,  hydrogen,  nitrogen,  and 
oxygen  atoms  should  be  otherwise  than  indifferent  to  their 
positions  and  motions,  past,  present,  or  future.  It  is 
utterly  inconceivable  how  consciousness  should  result  from 
their  joint  action."  ^     Man,  therefore,  as  a  personal  being, 

1  Prof.  John  Fiske:   The  Destiny  of  Man,  p.  109. 

2  Du  Bois  Raymond,  quoted  from  Dr.  Harris'  Philosophical  Basis  of  Tlieism. 


RELATION    OF    GOD    TO    THE    UNIVERSE.  269 

is  spirit  and  hyper-material.  His  high  attributes  lift  him 
into  communion  with  his  Creator,  and  place  him  above  the 
destiny  of  merely  physical  organization.  The  endowments 
and  provisions  of  his  soul  are  prophetic,  and  pledge  much 
that  is  unrealized  in  the  present  life.  Kant's  great  theis- 
tic  argument,  it  will  be  remembered,  finds  sufficient 
evidence,  not  only  of  the  existence  of  a  righteous  God, 
but  of  a  future  state,  in  the  intrinsic  constitution  of  the 
soul,  which  shows  that  it  has  been  made  for  a  happiness 
and  a  moral  excellence  unattainable  in  this  world.  The 
proof  of  both  God  and  immortality  is  found  in  the  laws  of 
man's  being.  The  grand  fact  of  personality,  in  all  that 
the  fact  involves  as  to  man's  essence  and  powers,  makes 
him  in  a  high  sense  a  child  of  the  infinite  Father  of  spirits, 
and  justifies  not  only  the  old  poet's  exultant  claim: 

"  We  are  also  His  offspring,"  ' 

but  the  common  human  faith  which  disdains  *'the  lot  of 
the  grass  that  withers  and  the  beasts  that  perish,"  and 
counts  on  living  forever.  And  thus  Natural  Theology, 
by  the  processes  through  which  it  has  reached  the  evi- 
dences of  the  existence  of  an  infinite  Author  of  the 
universe,  obtains  at  the  same  time  a  new  and  higher 
conception  of  the  relationship  and  destiny  of  the  human 
race.      In  finding  God  it   also  finds  man. 


In  here  closing  this  outline  view  of  the  great  subject 
presented,  it  is  proper  to  add  the  confession  of  Natural 
Theology,  that  it  cannot  open  up  all  the  truth  needed  by 
man's  religious  nature  or  required  by  the  moral  and  spirit- 

1  Aratus,  quoted  Acts  XVII,  28. 


270  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

iial  interests  of  the  race.  It  does,  indeed,  assure  and  vin- 
dicate tlie  great  fundamental  truth  of  the  existence  of  God, 
and  throw  expkiining  light  on  numberless  facts  of  nature 
and  life  and  problems  of  thought  and  duty.  The  truths 
which  it  vindicates  are  of  incalculable  moment.  But 
beyond  all  that  w^e  can  learn  concerning  God  and  His 
relation  to  the  world  from  reason  and  nature,  there  is 
room  and  necessity  for  the  light  and  teaching  of  a  super- 
natural revelation. 

1.  Natural  Theology  can  give  only  a  partial  and  incom- 
plete view  of  God's  character. 

2.  It  leaves  us  in  the  dark  as  to  man's  specific  end  in 
life  and  how  he  may  accomplish  it. 

3.  Its  intimations,  though  they  suggest  hope  for  the 
future,  yet  fail  to  bring  immortality  to  full  light. 

4.  It  does  not  explain  the  existence  of  sin  and  the 
depravity  of  our  race. 

5.  It  furnishes  no  remedy  for  sin  —  no  ^vay  of  forgive- 
ness, or  salvation  from  it. 

6.  The  history  of  mankind  shows  unquestionably  that 
when  left  to  the  mere  light  of  nature  and  reason  men  hold 
low  and  inadequate  conceptions  of  God,  and  are  wofully 
wanting  in  the  knowledge  necessary  to  a  right,  pure,  and 
happy  life.  Even  the  most  cultured  nations,  without 
God's  word,  have  failed  to  attain  a  clear  or  steady  con- 
ception of  his  character  and  will. 

7.  A  revelation  from  God  gives  a  fresh  and  most  im- 
pressive proof  of  His  existence.  As  we  have  His  revela- 
tion of  Himself  in  the  Holy  Scriptures  of  the  Old  and 
New  Testaments,  His  character  and  will  are  fully  made 
known.  The  great  questions  of  truth  and  duty  are 
answered.     In  God's  light  we  see  light. 


INDEX. 


Ab-soiute,  the,  a  necessity  of 
thought,  51,  52;  required  by 
the  Unite  conditioned  universe, 
(36;  God  the  absolute  Being, 
228;  God  an  absolute  Creator. 
257. 

Agnosticism,  53,  57. 

Analogy,  involved  in  tiie  teleolog- 
ical  argument,  8(5. 

Animals  feeding  on  one  another, 
242. 

Animal  intelligence.  119. 

Ankle,  112. 

Ansel m,  ontological  argument  of, 
45,  48. 

Aristotle,  10,  76,  96. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  215. 

Astronomical  order,  140,  174. 

Atheism  and  ethics,  38. 

Atmosphere,  the.  132,  142. 

Atomic  weight,  149. 

Atoms,  postulated,  69;  peculiar- 
ities stated  by  J.  Clerk  Max- 
well, 151. 

Attributes  of  God,  224. 


Bees,  121-124. 

Bell,  Sir  Charles,  6. 

Benign  influence  of  theistic  faith, 

36. 
Birds,  113,  126,  129. 
Book  of  the  Dead,  5. 
Bony  framework,  102. 
Bo  wen,  Prof.  Francis,  67. 
Bowne,  Prof.  Borden  P.,  6. 
Brahmanism,  28. 
Brain  and  Mind,  72,  200. 
Bridge  water  Treatises,  6. 
Buddhism,  27. 


Bi/riietf  Prize  Assays,  6. 
Butjer,  ontological  argument  by, 
47. 


Carpenter,  William  B.,  116,  122, 
124. 

Cause  defined,  60. 

Causes,  distinguished,  76. 

(/hadbourne,  Prof.,  113,  118,  130. 

Chalmers,  6,  153. 

Chance,  defined  and  explained, 
82;  insufficient  to  account  for 
finality,  186. 

Chemistry,  141;  atomic  weights 
conform  to  mathematical  order, 
172. 

Cicero.  5.  74. 

Circulatory  organs,  108. 

Clarke,  Samuel,  6,  48. 

Clausius,  71. 

Cocker,  Dr.  B.  F.,  6,  10. 

Comte,  16.  34. 

Conditions  of  Existence,  192. 

Conscience,  206. 

Consciousness  of  God,  54. 

Conservation  of  energy,  69. 

Cooke,  J.  P.,  6,  110',  134,  136, 
142,  150. 

Cosmological  evidence,  25,  59, 
219. 

Cousin,  ontological  proof  by,  47. 

Crystallization,  conforms  to  geo- 
metric order,  173. 

Cudworth,  9,  48. 

Cumulative  nature  of  the  evi- 
dences, 21,  221. 


Darwin.  117. 

Darwinism,  195,  198,  267. 
Day,  Dr.  H.  N.,  10,  32,  42. 


271 


272 


INDEX. 


Death  of  animals,  243. 

De  Brasses,  17. 

Deism,  6. 

Descartes,  9. 

Design,  subjective  and  objective, 

77. 
Digestive  system,  106. 
Diman,  Dr.  J.  Lewis,  6. 
Dissipation  of  energy,  70. 
Dorner,  ontological  argument  of, 

51. 
Du  Bois  Raymond,  41,  64,  268. 


Ear,  101. 

Earth,  its  development,  131 ;  and 
solar  system,  140. 

Erskine,  TJiomas,  212. 

Eternal  series,  94. 

Eternity  of  God,  225. 

Evolution,  as  including  more  or 
less,  194;  its  bearing  on  the  ar- 
gument from  final  cause,  196 ; 
and  conscience,  207,  208. 

Eve,  97,  180. 


Faith  as  an  immediate  apprehen- 
sion of  God,  57. 

Feeling  as  a  direct  apprehension 
of  God,  56. 

Fetishism,  17. 

Finality,  how  the  term  is  used,  95. 

Final  cause,  defined,  76;  relation 
to  efficient  cause,  79;  its  alter- 
native, 82;  viewed  as  resting 
on  experience  and  induction, 
83;  a  large  phenomenon,  88: 
found  in  nature,  96;  demands 
intelligence,  176. 

Fiske,  Prof.  John,  198,  202. 

Flint,  6,  13;  on  the  ontological 
evidence,  53. 

Freedom  of  will,  203. 


G 


Galen,  114. 

Goodness  of  God,  231;  required 
by  His  holiness,  232;  by  His 
wisdom,  233;   shown  by  crea- 


tion,   233:    difficulties   consid- 
ered, 236. 
Grav,  Prof.  Asa,  198. 


H 


Haeckel,  34,  64,  179. 

Hartmann,  Edward  von,  131,  161. 

Harris,  Prof.  S.,  6,  68. 

Hebrews,  4. 

Hegel,  178. 

Henry,  Prof.,  42. 

Herschel,  Sir  John,  150,  154. 

Hibernation,  129. 

Historv  of  theistic  proof,  4. 

Holiness,  231. 

Hume,  95,  177. 

Hunter,  John,  122,  125. 

Huxley,  165,  198. 


Idea  of  God  ;  its  content,  9-1 1 ; 
genesis  of,  11-16;  universal, 
27. 

Immanence  of  God  in  nature,  254. 

Immanence  of  finality,  183. 

Innnortality  of  man,  267. 

Inductive  science  and  intelligent 
design,  204. 

Infinity  an  attribute  of  God,  228. 

Influence  of  theistic  faith,  37. 

Intentionality,  as  correlative  to 
finalitv,  95;  required  by  final- 
ity, 176. 

Instinct,  religious,  30;  in  animals, 
116;  as  to  foods,  120,  123: 
correspondent,  121;  for  build- 
ing, 124;  for  continuance  of 
species,  128;  immanent,  183. 

Intuitional  truths,  accepted  in 
theistic  argument,  3. 

Intuition  of  God,  55. 


Janet,  Paul.  6,  73,  75,  84,  95. 
Jevons,  Prof.,  190. 

K 

Kant,   relied   on   the   moral  evi- 
dence, 23 ;  his  subjectivism,  52 ; 


IKDEX. 


273 


his  explanation  of  the  law  of 
causation,  02;  his  moral  nrgu- 
ment,  216. 

Kepler,  204. 

KicUl,  John,  0. 

Knowledge,  ontological,  07. 


Law  of  causation,  59;  defined,  01. 
Law  of  chemical  equivalents,  149. 
Legge,  Prof.  Jas.,  19. 
Life,  described,  155;  shows  final- 
ity, 157 ;  preparing  seed,  100. 
Love  of  God,  281. 


Lungs,  109. 


M 


Mansel,  Dean,  14. 

Man's  relation  to  nature,  90,  205. 

Materialism,  84.  72,  78,  200. 

Max  Muller,  17,  19,  28. 

Maxwell,  J.  Clerk,  151. 

McCosh,  Dr.  James,  0. 

Methods  of  proof,  24,  82. 

Migration,  periodic,  129. 

Mifl,  J.  S.,  95,  105,  177,  180. 

Milne-Edwards.  120. 

Mind,  a  part  of  begun  existence, 
72;  acts  as  a  final  cause,  103; 
adaptations  between  its  powers, 
100;  to  bodily  organism,  108; 
its  laws  of  pure  thought  tally 
with  the  realities  of  the  uni- 
verse, 109;  the  only  known 
cause  of  finality,  179;  recog- 
nizes its  own  products,  88,  181; 
inexplicable  by  materialism, 
201 ;  only  originating  power, 
220. 

Mivart,  St.  George,  129,  198. 

Monotheism,  10. 

Moral  evidence,  25,  200,  221. 

Moral  government,  218. 

Morality,  relation  of  Natural 
Theology  to,  7. 

Muscles,  104. 

N 

Names  for  God,  18. 

Nature,  a  source  of  theistic  evi- 


dence, 2,  21:  exhibits  final 
cause,  90;  under  general  laws, 
247;  tributary  to  man,  205. 

Neuwentyt,  0. 

xNewton,  0,  10. 

Ndiilism,  89. 

Nutrition,  112. 


Omnipotence,  280. 
Omnipresence,  280. 
Omniscience,  229. 
Ontological  evidence,  24,  25,  44, 

218. 
Oi)timism    and    pessimism,    282, 

250. 
Order,   may  be  only  uniformity, 

79. 
Organisms,  exhibit  nature  acting 

for    ends,    97;     defined,     114; 

adapted  to  their  place,  187. 
Origin  of  the  idea  of  God,  11. 
Oxygen,  142. 


Pain  and  suffering,  240. 

Paley,  0,  87. 

Personality  of  God,  how  far  in- 
dicated in  the  cosmological  evi- 
dence, 78;  as  an  attribute,  225. 

Philosopiiy,  relation  of  Natural 
Theology  to,  8. 

Planets,  periodic  times  and  math- 
ematical order,  174. 

Plato,  5,  45,  175. 

Plutarch,  87. 

Polytheism,  10-20. 

Porter,  Noah,  114,  205. 

Preestablished  harmony  between 
organisms  and  place,  188. 

Presumptive  evidences.  25,  20, 
218. 

Primitive  revelation,  12,  29. 

R 

Raymond  de  Sabunde,  5. 
Recognition   of    mind  by  mind, 

181. 
Relativity  of  knowledge,  02,  07. 


274 


INDEX. 


Religion,  distinguished  from  Nat- 
ural Theology,  4;  relation  of 
Natural  Theology  to.  7;  uni- 
versal, 31. 

Renouf,  P.  Le  Page,  19. 

Reville,  36. 

Rouge,  Emanuel,  19. 


Schelliug,.15. 

Schmid.' Rudolf,  161. 

Schmidt,  Oscar.  34. 

Schopenhauer,  178. 

Science,  relation  of  Natural  Tlie- 
ology  to,  8;  unable  to  explain 
the^  origin  of  sensation,  self- 
consciousness,  and  self-deter- 
mination, 41,  72,  203;  assumes 
the  law  of  causation,  63. 

Self-determination,  203. 

Self-existence,  42,  50,  51,  224. 

Seneca,  5. 

Sex  as  exhibiting  final  cause.  112. 

Smell,  101. 

Socinus,  Faustus,  5. 

Socrates.  5. 

Sound,  expressible  in  terms  of 
mathematical  thought,  173. 

Spencer,  Herbert,  39. 

Spirituality.  227. 

Stat 3,  relation  of  Natural  Theol- 
ogy to,  8. 

Strauss,  12,  34. 

Supreme  end  in  creation,  259. 


Taste,  101. 

Teleological  evidence,  25,  74,  219. 


Theistic  proof  cumulative.  23. 
Thompson,  Rev.  R.  A..  6. 
Time  and  space  of  God,  258. 
Transcendence  of  God,  253. 
Touch,  101. 
Tulloch,  Rev.  John,  6. 

U 

Uniformity  in  nature  conditional 
for  human  freedom,  248. 

Unity  of  God,  227. 

Universe,  finite  and  dependent. 
65 ;  unity  of,  228. 

Universality  of  tlie  idea  of  God. 
26. 


Valves,    provided   in   circulatory 

provision,  107,  109. 
Vedas,  5. 
Vegetable  growths  conforiiied  to 

a  I'ational  ordei',  173. 
Voltaire.  17. 

W 

Water,  135;  expanding  below  the 

freezing  point,  136. 
Whevvell,  6. 

Wisdom  an  attribute  of  God.  230. 
World,  viewed  as  an  effect.  92; 

its  ultimate  end.  265. 
Wundt,  65. 


Zend  Acesta,  5, 


FROM   THE  CATALOGUE  OF  S.   C.   GRIGGS  ^  CO. 

Anderson  —  America    Not    Discovered    by    Columbus.     A 

historical  Sketch  of  the  Discovery  of  America  by  the  Norsemen 
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jof's  Saga,  translated  by  Geo.  Stephens.     One  vol.     Cloth,  $2. 

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